[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.] I will be presenting this paper, Abraham and Moses as Entrepreneurs educating for the future with narratives of the past.
And this paper is based on my, uh, doctoral dissertation under the title The Discourse of Self-fulfilment in the I generation era.
And I will be shortly addressing, um, what is the I generation?
And, uh, so the dissertation addresses ideology and practice in Israeli education.
It has, uh, various, uh, publications.
And, uh, this, uh, paper that I'm presenting today actually builds on, um, this, uh, previous work.
So, uh, who are the I generation? So this is, uh, actually a term that I'm borrowing from, um, the psychologist Jean Wang,
who, um, says that the I generation is the current generation of youth and children.
The I represents technology as the generation born into the era of the iPhone and the internet.
And also it represents the self, the I as the me generation,
as this generation is believed to be a generation that focuses on the self and themselves.
And of course, we will, uh, maybe also challenge this, uh, perspective, uh, today.
But if we are talking of the self, as I, uh, believe the that the positionality of the researcher plays an important role in every research.
But, um, of course, uh, unquestionably in research such as the one present today, which is, uh, qualitative, uh, sociological research.
So I will be presenting myself to, uh, begin.
Um, so my name is actually Sally Rima.
I'll finish some, uh, my first name is, um, is biblical.
And uh, my second name, Rima, means gazelle in Arabic, and it is an Arab name.
Um, I was born and raised in Israel, and my father, um, came to Israel in 1949.
He was actually hidden in his, uh, Iraqi Jewish grandmother's, uh, traditional Arab dress as they fled Iraq.
And, um, her name was Rima, and I am named after her.
And, um, my mom was born and raised in Manchester, and, um, in 1970, she came to Israel as a volunteer in a kibbutz, and she met my dad in a party.
And, well, the rest is, you know, my my personal history.
And, um, it's also explains my, um, very shifty, uh, yeah, uh, accent.
So excuse me for that. I change my identity as I, as I go and, um, um, coming from this various background.
So I'm a first generation in the academia, and this is me speaking as a valedictorian.
Um, I do not have any. I do not have one decent photo from this, this event.
So you could just imagine me like this. Um, depends which generation we are from, really.
And, um, but yeah, we do have a lot of pictures like this.
Um, because my mom was actually taking pictures of my dad, and my dad was taking pictures of me, and he was shaking because he was crying,
and he was crying in joy because I was telling the story of Rima, who I'm named after, who was a wise woman but also illiterate.
And, um, I asked for her name to be on the diploma.
So, um, she I can I can, you know, remember her and in the academic sphere and I,
I put her name on every, um, paper I present and every talk I give to kind of preserve her memory within.
Within the academia. Um, I'm a critical sociologist.
I know just a few years ago, uh, I'm a critical sociologist, and, um, but I have an optimistic outlook,
and I'm going to do the best and to bring these two perspectives into action when I present my, uh, paper.
Um, okay. So I will be discussing the current sociological ideals promoted in Israeli national education.
And I believe I do not need to introduce Israel to the people in the room.
I do, uh, encourage the people who are listening to us in the,
in the podcasts and the people in this room to read the scholarship of Professor Yaakov Yad Gal,
who, uh, brings, uh, very strong understanding, um, to, um, the current Israeli identity.
And specifically, I am, um, corresponding in my work.
With, uh, um, Professor Gill's book Israel's Jewish Identity Crisis and, um.
Well, just to give a short introduction of as well, which is something that is very hard to do.
Um, I do want to focus on the fact that Israel self-identifies as both Jewish and democratic.
And, um, this paradox has ignited both domestic and international conflicts throughout the years.
Judaism is unique in the sense that it could be defined as a religion, ethnicity,
and nationality, and as the state defines itself as the nation state of the Jewish people,
it challenges democratic principles of equality for all citizens, regardless of religion and or ethnicity,
to more than 26% of its population who are not Jewish, and most of whom, uh, are, um, Arab Palestinian Muslims.
So education has long been a main site for nation building and fostering citizenship across the globe.
And therefore, education has been examined both as a factor contributing to nation or state building and as a function of it.
Um, and today we will examine the cultural ideals and ideologies embedded in Israeli state education to understand the current ideals.
Israeli citizen Israeli school education is almost entirely public, and its curriculum is, um, mostly, uh, defined by the Ministry of Education.
However, within this national system lies great variability, variability, and one of the major variables, uh,
is defined by the language used in schools dividing state education system into Hebrew and Arabic,
uh, which of course intersect with ethno nationality, religion and geography.
And there are very few bilingual schools in Israel, uh, teaching in Hebrew and Arabic.
Uh. Hebrew public schools are further classified as state and state religious.
There are also Jewish ultra orthodox schools, mostly partially funded by state and local,
supervised, and uh, there are Arabic public schools are defined as state,
Arab, um, and they mostly include Muslim students and our uh, and there's also a private system of church based schools, um, for, um, Arab Christians.
It's important to add that the Jewish um, school system of the state, both state and state religious.
The children who go to these systems face compulsory, uh, mandatory service once they graduate.
So I focus in my, uh, in my study on the Hebrew state school system, my stream, which the majority of Israeli children attend.
And my focus, my focus here today is on the I generally in my research,
I focus on the translations of global discourses into the local educational context in Israel.
And specifically today, I focus on the entrepreneurial discourse and, um,
the way that it's translated into Israeli public education, which heavily echoes, um,
collectivist, ethno national, religious,
militaristic discourses to better understand who is the ideal citizen reflected in Israeli education discourse of today.
So just to understand very briefly the concept of discourse from a foucauldian perspective.
Discourse is both language and practice, which constructs knowledge and power that shapes our understanding of truth.
And education is a major site to examine discourse and practices.
As Foucault states, every educational system is a political means of maintaining or modifying the
appropriation of discourse with the knowledge and the powers it carries with it.
What is an educational system? After all? It's not a visualisation of the word if not a distribution,
you know of an end and an appropriation of discourse with all its learnings and its powers.
Israel's public school education has stated from its very establishment that its purpose is to promote ethno national and Zionist values,
and at the same time, following global trends.
Israel has gone through prevailing neoliberal processes in the last two decades, and these processes come about in economic,
social, cultural, as well as educational settings, giving the rise to the entrepreneurial ethos.
In education.
I rely on literature addressing the entrepreneurial discourses, promoting a self-governing citizen while stressing accountability and employability.
The entrepreneurial ideal self is autonomous, ambitious, hardworking, goal oriented, calculated, self-reflective, accountable and self-regulated self.
It's so tiring just to say that just imagine holding that continuously with yourselves, as we already do, even if we're not agents.
Right? So, um,
this this idea is associated in sociological literature with neoliberalism and the weakening of social solidarity and this body of research which
draws on Michel Shelf because notion of governance mentality and Nicholas Rowe's approach that addresses neoliberalism not as an economic,
not only an economic phenomenon of a free market,
but rather a political process of subject ification produced by the neoliberal vocabulary of enterprise.
So neoliberalism as a global phenomenon advocating for individualised free market culture has been mostly understood as opposed to nationalism,
as it promotes promotes privatisation and globalisation nonetheless closed culture and current trends.
And that that is a global, uh, phenomenon that we can of course, address later on, uh,
see the rise of nationalist and isolationist ideologies around the globe and in Israel.
These political currents have intensified over the past decade with the leadership of right wing governments and policies.
So the the, the entrepreneurial ethos is in which encourages personal autonomy has developed in Israeli education.
Paradoxically, in the years when Israeli state worked simultaneously to suppress it.
So we have here a discourse that is regarded as promoting neoliberal ideology, which is individualistic,
global American in a sense, promoting personal autonomy in a future oriented, aspirational self.
And on the other hand, as to national discourses which promote collectivist, local, nationalist,
militaristic and communal values through a discourse that is past focussed, relying on a notion of a shared ancestry.
And therefore I ask, how is the global discourse of entrepreneurialism which encourages the construction of an autonomous,
individualistic and entrepreneurial citizen is assimilated and translated into
state education system that seeks to establish ethno national citizenship.
And I followed a discourse of entrepreneurialism in Israeli education in a multifocal Qualitative Inquiry from 2017 to 2023.
It already began with my master's degree. And, uh, this, this inquiry included, um, all kinds of, uh, various, um, tools of, uh,
in-depth interviews and, uh, content analysis and focus groups and, uh, also ethnographic data and,
um, and through policymakers, educators, uh, the youth themselves, which in this specific talk,
I will let's, uh, address but I can address if you would like, later on.
Um, and and contrary to to the notion that neoliberalism and nationalism are mutually exclusive.
The current research reveals that within the Israeli state education,
the archetype of the entrepreneurial Zionist ideal citizen is becoming increasingly dominant.
And this idea is promoted by policymakers, educators and echoes within Israeli national education landscape through discourse
of practices which connect the entrepreneurial ethos with a nationalistic,
militaristic ethos and recruit Jewish Israeli as the national narratives and symbols to the neoliberal vocabulary.
And the findings will show how this hybrid ideal results in the also in the exclusion of whoever is not, uh, Jewish, European middle class man.
And I'm sorry, I'm just being very specific, but of course.
Um. So of course it's more complex than that.
But you will see with these examples the way that this discourse kind of embeds also exclusion and the use of this cartoon is,
is um, is of course, um, on purpose to reflect, um, to reflect the discourse that is embedded there.
So. When I was growing up in the 1980s, uh, it was really education.
And I went to a state school. I went to a disco school.
Um, so this is just an illustration.
You don't don't try bother to to to find me. I have no pictures of myself as a child.
I'm not an agent, you know? Uh, no, no, we're just continuously taking photos of me.
So I actually borrowed a photo from somebody that is slightly older than me, just to.
To show the kind of vibe that I remember from my childhood.
So every first morning of the first day of the week, we had a morning assembly, uh,
was called Miss Dharma Bouquet morning formation, that is, uh, militaristic term.
And we used to stand in the school wearing green, like, you know, like green t shirts, uniforms in organised lines of three,
while two boys rose the flag of Israel to the head of the pool, to the sound of another boys drumming.
And this picture on the left is and it's taken from Israeli school.
It actually in the 1970s. Uh, but so this morning formation it's not a governmental policy and nonetheless it is part of a lot of um,
yeah, people from 70s, 80s, 90s who went to school in Israel, um, kind of stories.
Well, it is part of mine. And I grew up in a very nationalistic and militaristic school environment.
I was watching very explicit videos of the Holocaust when I was very young, gave me lots of nicknames.
Uh, that was lovely. I, uh, specifically, um, I specifically remember the, um.
Um, Jerusalem Day celebrations. There were a huge event in my school, uh, that's celebrating the 67 war.
I did not understand that as a child. Of course.
Um, and there were memorial plaques at the entrance of the school with pictures of school graduates who died in their military service.
And this was just part of my everyday life.
Scenery. I actually do remember even the names and faces still today.
The literature defines. Jewish Israelis.
Thy name in this sense is ethno nationalism. And that is because Judaism cannot be defined solely as a religion, but also as an ethnicity.
And put simply, ethno nationalism perceives the state not in terms of citizenry,
but in terms of ethnicity that is often based on a notion of shared ancestry.
In this sense, membership in the nation state is conditioned by belonging to a specific ethnic community
that is perceived as entitled to have absolute authority over the state's affairs.
And I'm quoting Pinson in Igboland. So today, a great deal of theological literature has been addressing processes of neoliberalism,
privatisation, individualisation, americanisation, marginalisation.
Just sociologists really love words with action.
At the end, it's just we just sometimes just sit together and just like make up words like that, you know, just so for fun.
And in current Israeli everyday discourse, Israel is referred to as the Start-Up nation.
This term introduced by and singer uh, is related to Israel's huge high tech industry and its exceptionally high ratio of Start-Ups per capita.
Nonetheless, this term also reflects an astute national view of entrepreneurialism, as Israel's high tech industry has strong ties with the IDF.
And and to quote uh, Jonathan Jensen, Preminger is a Jewish industry linked to the mythical Jewish genius.
So. The entrepreneur's ethos is within this context, of course, broadly embraced within Israeli national education system.
And this global discourse, as we've presented in the beginning,
is something that highlights personal autonomy and promotes individualisation and global neoliberal values.
And I will give an example from my own experience. So this is my daughter's first day of school.
And she's a true agent. I have so many photos of this day as on every day in her life.
Really? You could just, like, flip through. Just see the stop motion of her whole life if you would like.
And, um, the children here. They walked into the school on a red carpet.
Individually. When parents and teachers are cheering them on.
And the Wolves had these inspirational quotes by American leaders and, uh,
they the subject that they were learning from first grade was empowerment and reflective writing of the self.
And, you know. So it's very easy to see the gap between these two periods of time and use such words that end with action, right?
And just see it as a process of shifting, moving from A to B, you know, something changed.
It's a complete shift. We moved from one thing to the other.
And the research that I'm presenting today challenges this, um, this kind of linear perspective is,
I argue that the Israeli current educational discourse is a unique conjunction in which ethno
nationalistic ideals are recruited to strengthen the ethno nationalist entrepreneurial ethos,
while neoliberal values and narratives are harnessed to strengthen and ethno national identity in the entrepreneurial Zionist ideal citizen.
And I will now show examples from, um, my, um, findings.
So I will begin with, uh, Naftali Bennett, who was Israel's minister of education 2015 to 2019 and, uh, also Israel's former PM.
And in my research I analysed all the, uh, public, um, messages from um, uh, social media to public speaking.
And throughout his tenure as the minister of education, while he attributed, um, entrepreneurialism.
And of course, Nathaniel Bell is is a great example for the paradox within, uh,
my research, because he is known for his for my career as a high tech entrepreneur.
And, uh, he succeeded to make an exit as, uh, they like to call it.
And he is also a religious man and was the head of a conservative religious right wing political party.
And, and therefore, uh, yeah, he is a great example for, um, the ideal that I'm speaking of, of, of entrepreneur is Zionism.
But at the same time, it is very important to see it and you will see it, uh, throughout the examples that Bennett represents, uh,
growing ideological trend among Israeli education, promoting neoliberal policies side by side, the attempts to strengthen ethno nationalistic values.
During his tenure, he led, together with Israeli high tech professionals, a campaign intended to promote studying high level math and,
like other worldwide um, educational programs that promote Stem learning while connecting it to national economic growth.
The slogan of the program was give yourself, give the country, and this is what Bennett said when he was presenting.
The expression equal opportunity is transforming today from a slogan to a reality.
The days in which the student wanted to study grade five math.
That's the highest level of math studies in Israel, but couldn't do so because of where he lives are over.
A child from a [INAUDIBLE]. It's the lowest Jewish town in Israel's periphery, has no less potential than a child for Savion.
It's a high Jewish town in Israel's centre. He just needs us not to stop him.
When I was in the Army and in high tech, there was a perception of either or.
Either we do something for ourselves at the expense of the country, or we do something for the country at our own expense.
But here it's both in the national math program, the child will be strengthening his own future,
but also contributes to the future of the State of Israel.
And something that is, uh, hard to do when when you translate from Hebrew to English is preserve what Hebrew does,
uh, with masculinity and, and, um, male and female.
So I just want to explain here that, uh, Bennett here uses, uh.
Male and not plural or female throughout.
Um, throughout the text. Um and um.
And he stresses that, you know, this, this equal opportunity to learn high level math is a choice that,
as advertised as a ticket into the future job market is,
of course, also has been proven before as uh, depending also on other opportunities such as uh,
geography, ethnicity, gender, social and economic factors.
Uh, but here by merging. Then it's personal narrative and high tech with frequent military service.
References. Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel.
So not necessarily deliberately, but inevitably are excluded from the national entrepreneurial story.
Also, you can see that Palestinian citizens of Israel and also national disadvantage minority, which is reflected, of course,
in the intersection of socioeconomic status and geographies and language and
education aren't even mentioned in the forecast for the end of of inequality.
So another example that has been very dominant both in Naftali Bennett references but
across Israeli education is the attribution to the um private high tech company ways.
And um, since it's made an exit and was sold in 2013 to to Google um.
The mention of Waze in various settings in in Israeli education perpetuates this neoliberal and so national myth which describes,
you know, young men who are mostly former military service officers and,
um, you know, they carry only an idea and just initial capital,
and they work from their apartments and and then they manage to sell their small company to a global company and get rich.
And in current Israeli educational discourse, this myth is, is the frequent promoter of the entrepreneurial Zionist ideal,
as this and other private owned companies are presented also as an ideal for young individuals and also is a source for national pride.
So I can give you examples from the landscape of Israeli education.
For example, you can see these stairs in an elementary school and it's, uh, describes the Israeli inventions.
And just forget about the, you know, the ugly shoes that we're so proud of.
But, um, you can see the disconnect key and, um,
and ways and discuss key and ways are specific are two specific ones that keep on showing up in my data when referring to Israeli pride and,
and Israeli, um, ideals.
And again, these are two um, yeah, private companies that are, uh, seen as an Israeli invention.
And this wall, yeah.
Uh, this huge wall is just a typical high school in central Israel.
Nothing unique. Um, and yeah, that just I can tell you later on when I'm not recorded where it is, and it's very it's just a regular known school.
Uh, very nice.
Uh, I mean, I'm, I mean, for just no one is just like a regular school, not anything just to explain in the recording what we're seeing.
So, uh, under the title Israeli Pride, uh, we can see, um.
Yeah, just a tank and Uzi gone, among other Israeli military inventions.
And in the middle of it all ways. So, um, I think this war really speaks, uh, for itself.
And, and it also represents, um, the entrepreneurial,
nationalistic ideal that is strengthened by the link between military service and the high tech industry.
And this the current ideal right now for both youth and educators.
And this was very dominant in in my data, the phrase the good ones go to cyber is also a dominant, um,
issue now in Israeli public debate and will not currently in this moment right now, uh, as we are back with other things.
But it is, uh, very strongly um, and it's something that troubles and is part of, of, uh, everyday discourse.
And this is like, um, it's become an aspiration to serve in the elite units of, um, of, of the um, intelligence in the military.
And this link between the military and the high tech industry is not just brought forward to use in the days before the military service.
This is something that infiltrates Israeli education from the very beginning.
It starts in it. And as you will see as a joke, it starts in kindergarten.
But it does start in kindergarten in in my data.
And it's reflected in popular culture. For instance, in Israel's, um, most viewed comedy series, uh, it's not there.
So they have this kind of, um, series of sketches under the title The High Tech Nation.
And, um, in, in, in this, um, there's like a, a typical head of a typical high tech Israeli company,
and he is trying to recruit workers outside a military base of an elite technology unit.
And he comes to its conclusion that it's best to recruit them in kindergarten.
But, um. This is funny to Israel is a lot of times to see comedy and think what makes people laugh.
Is also a way of understanding the culture.
So this makes Israelis laugh because they know how much it is embedded in an education from the very, um, early age.
And military service has been a major, a springboard to the to to the job market, of course, for many years.
So this is not something new, but the way that it's transformed is, uh, indeed a very current and.
So this. The entrepreneurial Zionist ideal is not just carried out by the connection to military.
It is also carried out by connecting entrepreneurialism to the essence of Jewish Israeli narratives and symbols.
And I will give a few examples for that.
So at the 2017, uh, Israel's Dependence Day, the Minister of Education said.
From the very beginning of our existence, the champions of our people were people of action and troopers.
Abraham realised the polytheism was a disaster.
He got up and acted. He left his homeland and went to Israel and started spreading the belief in one God and in moral living.
Moses realises slavery is disastrous for the Jews.
He acted. He went to Pharaoh and acted to free the Jews.
Theodor Herzl turned the ancient theoretical desire of our people to return to Israel and to practical measures.
He started a Jewish Congress, travelled all over the world, um, to promote the Zionist idea.
I was asked once when I, um, showed this quote, if if he is the the minister of all the Israelis or only the Jews.
Yeah. So of course my research focuses on the member state, but, um, when I'm referring to the Minister of Education, um,
we're talking about the entire Ministry of Education, of course, also when I will be referring to senior, uh, policy makers.
So at this point, he turned to the there were students in the audience, and he turned to students in the audience.
And, and he said, Israel must be a light unto the nations in entrepreneurship.
As Israel's minister of education, I tell you, there's something you aren't graded for in your diploma, but it's what will make you succeed in life.
Be entrepreneurs. Get up and act.
So Bennett's strips the biblical stories of divine power and places man, specifically the Jewish man, and his initiatives at the centre of it.
He presents an archetype of an ideal self by rebranding and giving new interpretations to ethno nationalist narratives,
addressing Abraham Moses and Theodor Herzl as first and foremost entrepreneurs.
And as I mentioned then, it represents a growing ideological trend among policymakers in Israel education.
And I want to give you an example from Mary, who is the senior executive in Israeli Ministry of Education.
And she she was in the Ministry of Education before Bennett.
And she was also she continued working there after you finished his tenure.
And she, uh, explained to me in her interview why, in her opinion, it's important for students to possess entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial traits.
It's no longer an error. When one develops a great initiative and then rests its thinking right away with the next initiative.
Kids who start school today will change 17 workplaces, three different careers every two three years.
I want to prepare them once you'll be a veterinarian and once a pilot, and then you'll be a graphic designer.
What toolbox am I giving you? Agility. Both quick and flexible thought.
Knowing that this area is rapidly changing and you need to quickly adapt to the next one.
But for many. This agility is important as a person.
Is it as a personal quality? But it also. Is seen as, uh, is really Jewish natural quality.
And this is what Mary said. The Israeli Jewish perception that there's always someone rising to kill us.
So why are we so entrepreneurial and have, like 700 Nobel Prizes?
Because we need to survive. That is the story of the Jewish people.
2000 years of exile. We came back here. Who knows what will happen next?
That's a force that leads us to do things that are groundbreaking, that are entrepreneurial,
creative, revolutionary, and solutions that granted the Start-Up nation.
The Start-Up nation is something in our DNA. And at this point I turned to me and I asked, do you mean Jewish?
Do you mean Israeli? And she said.
It can be Israeli and it can be Jewish. It doesn't matter. This spark something in the genes.
I think that someone gives us something and we immediately think about the next thing or its next generation.
Um. So. This hybrid entrepreneurialism, the national ideal is dominant also in school physical sites.
And, uh, I will show a few examples. So, so first, uh, interesting to know that Steve Jobs is highly, highly, uh, quoted on Israeli rules.
And, uh, so we have here everybody should learn how to code by Steve Jobs and the people
who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
And, uh, we have other entrepreneurs.
Uh, this is the ministry, the minister of education from 2000, um, 21 to 2022, doctor Joshua Beecham, under the quote, uh, by Richard Branson.
And this, uh, this is a wall from a seventh grade classroom, and the quote is, a goal without a time known is simply a dream.
And it appeared with the Hebrew attribution to Robert Herjavec.
And I did not know who it is. It's not a known persona in Israel, but apparently he is a shark in the TV and the American TV show Shark Tank.
Uh, he's an entrepreneur. And, uh, yeah, he gets to decide who he gives money to.
And this is a quote that he wrote, uh, in his Twitter and he's quoted in a classroom, um, this this classroom was designed 2015.
He just quoted that to 2015. So as Steve Jobs and other entrepreneurs are, um.
You know, presented as ideals on school walls at the beginning of my research.
I also analysed these examples as cases of americanisation.
I mean, this is just like, right? It's just so easy. I just I need to write that paper.
Right. And, um, but but what's interesting is that they, they kept appearing together with ethno national narratives.
And I will give a few examples to that. So if we have here Steve Jobs.
And at the same school we have, um, this wall representing the wards of Israel.
And under this title appear nine round plaques with pictures from each war labelled with their respective names.
And this photo was taken in 2022.
So, uh, next to it, as you can see on the side there is the just like the school from my childhood on the, you know,
maybe graphically more designed memorial plaques with pictures of school graduates who died during their mandatory military service.
And this school, like other schools, have technological curriculum based on military elite programs.
And these things are continuously appearing, uh, together.
This is a huge wall. And, uh, junior high school.
And it says, Marvel at the wonder of the creation.
The text in the Hebrew is uttered will be r.
The word b r in Hebrew automatically is attached with the biblical book of Genesis.
And here at the the picture scene we can see the iPhone is creating nature.
Don't know how much you're familiar with the Book of Genesis. This did not happen on the eighth day.
Okay. So, um, so, um, yeah.
So this is a secondary school. Okay.
But here is a photo from a religious school.
And this is a stage religious school and under the titles The Wonder of the creator.
We have five creations of God and four of them are technological creations.
And, um, yeah. So another great difference.
Uh, from my childhood to my child's childhood is with the celebration of Jewish holidays in school.
Which also reflect the entrepreneurial Zionist ethos, as you will see.
So since, uh. pre-State Jewish education in Israel,
Jewish holidays have been used to promote Zionist socialisation and were integrated into the ethos of nation building.
And this also meant reviving and, uh, renewing Jewish holidays to fit the Zionist ethos.
And in Jewish holiday celebrations in the 80s and in the 90s, they, uh,
continuously use the narrative that strengthens the collective Jewish is really, uh, narrative within, uh, Israeli education.
And in contrast, in third grade, my child came home a few days just before Hanukkah and she came back with,
uh, uh, drawing of a menorah and, um, on the on the title, it said The Light Within me.
And on the shamash is the main candle which supposed to light the other candles, actually.
Uh, she wrote her name, and then in the other candles, she was asked to write names of people who help her shine.
And this is a very common, um, the concept of the light within me is very common in Israeli education today.
It has different variations. Um, they almost call it cliche.
Oh, I had one, uh, I had one, uh, educator that said, oh, it's cliche, I, I can't do it anymore.
And then she explained to me how she still does it, but with different attributes because, uh, they use like,
uh, um, most likely they use a, um, a picture of, um, um, a light and they, they write, uh, their strength.
And the concept of strengths is, is something from, uh, positive psychology that is used, uh, with, of course, the symbol of the light.
And this is not happening just in Hanukkah.
Um, which, uh, it's is happening also with lag, but, um, where you celebrate the fire within you and your passions and your aspirations and.
You can celebrate your your freedom and your personal autonomy and Passover and forgiving yourself in Yom Kippur.
And this is dominant throughout, uh, Israeli education.
And, uh, by the way, not actually an official curriculum, but something that coming from all kinds of various interpretations, uh, from within.
So, um, in the holiday of Shevat. Yeah,
it was renewed in Israeli education in early days to strengthen a collective identity and
the love of the land and the symbol of the tree here is today a symbol for self-growth.
And how can you aspire to high new challenges like the tree?
And, uh, also the National Independence Day, we you can talk.
Children are encouraged to reflect on their own independence.
So this kind of hybrid, uh, ethno national entrepreneurial ideal, which can, for instance, serve to portray Moses as an entrepreneur.
It serves to strengthen both neoliberalism and nationalism at the same time.
Well, first, the mix. You know, Moses, very fun and and and and hip and you know, he's the bearded hipster.
He's just doing his thing. So he's making him very relatable to, to young individuals.
Uh, but also at the same time, when you take such symbols, they're so embedded in culture and, um, actually use them to strengthen neoliberal ideals.
Um, so that's also happening at the same time.
Um, and. When I, when I went with my eldest child, uh, to to see a high school.
And we was like a school assembly and we were talking about all the different programs, of course, military leads.
And you could do this and you could do that. Of course, a lot of references to all kinds of things like that.
But then they talked about, um, learning Persian.
Yeah. So there is, um. They publicised a new track that is called Persian and Iran Studies.
And this is how it's portrayed. So we have here a picture from the Israeli series to Helen of the main character,
who is a technological hacking expert from the elite technology arm unit, working as a spy for the Mossad in Iran.
And this is how it's, um, described as, of course, again, a way to get into, uh, military, um, um,
cyber unit or any unit that could be, again, a springboard for being in high tech in the future.
And I see this picture every time I see it.
It makes me it makes me upset, uh, because, uh, when I was a child, my Arabic teacher told me that we learn Arabic to know our enemy.
And she was Iraqi. Okay, so she was it would be Iraqi origin, just like my father.
And my father thinks of Arabic as the most loving and and his his mother tongue.
And it's it's comforting. It's it's comforting, uh, you know, language.
And he also sees himself as an Arab Jew. So he thinks of his actual unique, uh, um, you know, hybrid, uh, identity as, as a bridge to peace.
And, and this was troubling for me as a child.
And. On the 7th of October, 2023, I landed in Luton Airport at 2 a.m. and, uh, I was giving a talk in in a British university.
And of course, um, I wasn't sure if I'm going to cancel the talk or not.
And I decided to to go first. My my flight was cancelled, and I thought I might as well just do the talk.
And I was just, like, having trouble to talk at all and not just talk about Israel and explain, uh, the Israeli ideals embedded in Israeli education.
And as I showed this picture. Uh, fellow scholar in the room started crying.
And, uh, she explained that she was from Iran.
And that she is actually, uh.
It echoes her childhood and her experience as she was taught to hate.
And she said that was so to hate you. And, um, so I got up and I embraced her and.
And I was comforting her. And I was thinking of my girls.
Who were and is in Israel at the time with her grandmother and.
And how for me, education for them is educating to love always and.
Yeah. And make an exit, huh? Love an exit.
Let's do that. Yeah. I don't know.
I think it's it's not as important to make an exit.
It will be okay. And, um, so to understand the risks.
Contribution. Uh, let's consider the literature on neoliberalism in general.
So we have in sociological literature, a lot of writing about neoliberalism from a near Marxist perspective and theories.
Uh, such as, uh, David Harvey, uh, writes about how neoliberalism is profound.
Nationalism is profoundly antagonistic to the neoliberal agenda.
Uh, nonetheless, he believes that the neoliberal states needs nationalism of a certain sort to survive.
So from this point of view, nationalism is used, um, to promote or to strengthen neoliberalism and also, uh, similarly.
The writing about entrepreneurial education from a sociological, critical perspective.
Uh, addressing governance. You know, neoliberal governance mentality is usually addressed as it is something that,
uh, diminishes collective practices, diminishes nationalism, diminishes.
Um, other, um, discourses. Um.
On the other hand, we have, uh, uh, I guess if I am saying his name.
Right. Who who analysed the book Start-Up nation and the discourse embedded in this book.
And he, um, says that this book promotes neoliberal Zionist, uh, it or um, it shows neoliberal Zionist governance mentality.
And and, uh, he claims that in the lead in neoliberal Zionism, Israeli entrepreneurs are not in competition with each other.
Rather, the enterprise of Israel is in competition with other states and peoples.
So in this case, neoliberalism comes to serve the ethno nationalist ethos.
And in contrast, the research here shows how,
through a neoliberal ethno national ideal promoted by social agents in the Israeli education system, the entrepreneurial,
individualistic spirit and Jewish Israeli ethno nationalist narratives are weaved together
in a way that strengthens both nationalism and ethno nationalism at the same time.
So the research expands our understanding of how local cultural particularities reshape global discourses of neoliberalism.
And in this particular context, entrepreneurial discourses do not serve only as a global monolithic discourse.
Uh. Concerned with legitimising neoliberal economy.
Um, nor do they only serve to legitimise ethno national nationalism at all.
And the examples from different sites. Also show how this that this discourse is promoting.
Hybrid idea is designed in a dynamic process, and it's also a fluid process of top down, down and bottom up trends,
um, that together reflect power relations embodied in discourse with within this socio political context.
And these intersections of neoliberalism and ethno nationalism reproduce inequalities through discourse of practices,
including, for instance, women and Palestinian Arab Israeli minorities from the ideal citizen narrative.
And as this high tech bro in this, uh and the Israeli comedy TV show stresses,
this idea holds the notion that people are divided into winners and losers and.
Actually, this is not something new. This is this is like, uh, you know,
this is a wonderful illustration of of what really which portrays how this is not a new it's a new and not so much improved version of Hebrew labour,
the Hebrew labour idea of the beginning of the 20th century.
And it's reflected in practice in the high tech industry, which is 99 5% Jewish and also reflects gender,
ethnic geographical inequalities, which are reproduced through the military service and the job market.
And of course, I did start by saying that I'm a critical sociologist with enough domestic outlook.
Um, so. Yes, Israel is stratified and, um.
It's these social inequalities are of of ethnicity and gender and religion are
have been proven to be reproduced over and over again in Israeli education.
And these social gaps remain stable despite official ministerial programmes to reduce them.
And my research also shows how inequality is reproduced through local hybridity of neoliberal and national narrative,
strengthening each other to reclaim social inclusion and exclusion and reconstruct.
It's like reconstructing inequality as natural or as truth.
So neoliberal ideology is based on the assumption that anyone can succeed it it only depends on you.
And these kinds of assumptions make inequality seem just and almost natural.
And ethno national ethos is discriminatory in nature.
And as it creates band boundaries of who's in and who's not, depending on ethnicity, um, the one is born with.
So again, it's seemingly natural discrimination.
And these two ideologies promoted the Zionist entrepreneur ideal, unfortunately work wonderfully together to deepen inequality.
And for some optimism, I must. Um, yeah.
These days I teach storytelling of knowledge to postgraduates who are all educators in Israeli education, and they come from all the streams and, um.
They they work together, and I see it as a unique opportunity to critically reflect together on the narratives embedded in Israeli education.
And we we do it by addressing such issues as discourse and thinking once again,
of how we say and what we say and and how we present, and how materiality presents discourse and embeds it even stronger.
And, um, I believe that it is possible to change.
And I do do not see things as linear and dichotomous and in any, in any way.
And, uh, I think of their children that's a child of, um, my students on the right, and I think of my children.
My youngest also began school. So, uh, I do not want to only use that opportunity as a mother to, uh, to, to to get that done.
For my research, I would rather not have any data at all.
Um, and, um, and I hope that they could, um, create a different narrative to what it means to be an Israeli citizen.
So thank you very much.