Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch told JNS recently he had shut down a project that sought to introduce “gender thinking” and “gender sensitivity” to kindergarten classes for children aged 3-6.
“This was a pilot program that started during Minister [Yifat] Shasha-Biton’s tenure,” a spokesperson for Kisch’s office stated in a response shared with JNS on Tuesday.
Shasha-Biton was education minister on behalf of the New Hope Party in the “government of change” led by premiers Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett from June 2021 to December 2022.
When Kisch took office in late 2022, “he ordered the pilot to be stopped and the call for tender proposals to be canceled,” the statement said.
“Any other claim is simply incorrect!” the spokesman’s statement added.
A spokeswoman for the ministry told JNS likewise that “the pilot program is not operating in any kindergarten this year.”
Kisch’s spokesman and the Ministry of Education declined to comment to JNS on why their ministry published a renewed tender five months ago to submit proposals for the project for the 2024-2025 school year.
According to the tender, initially publicized on Nov. 19, 2024, the goal of the government pilot was to “instill gender awareness from early childhood, thereby providing this age group and the educational staff working with them with an understanding of gender issues, which helps transform kindergartens into ‘gender-sensitive kindergartens.’
“Gender stereotypes accompany us, both men and women, even before we are born, shaping our behavior toward ourselves and others. By the ages of 2 to 3, children already have knowledge of gender roles, and by ages 4 to 5, they have internalized stereotypical beliefs,” it continued.
The initiative, for which bids could be submitted until Dec. 3, sought to encourage “personal and developmental reflection” and equip children with “practical tools regarding gender concepts and human dignity.”
Bethany Mandel, co-author of “Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation,” told JNS that “this ideology is at its core anti-Jewish and has no place in a school, anywhere.
“As Jews, we have written the basic truths about the differences between men and women woven into our foundational texts,” Mandel explained.
“Throughout human history, revolutionaries have targeted the young and impressionable; that’s the playbook here for woke ideologues. The goal of radical gender ideology is to disrupt the basic building blocks of society, erasing how we understand gender,” the Jewish political and cultural commentator charged.
David Bernstein, the founder and CEO of the North American Values Institute, urged Israel’s Education Ministry to “proceed with caution.
“When this enters the school system, it morphs into more extreme forms of ideology. Here in the United States, we’ve seen it manifest as deeply antisemitic,” said Bernstein.
In March, Knesset member Avi Maoz, who leads the Noam Party and led the Jewish National Identity Authority in the Prime Minister’s Office until he resigned in March, cited the pilot as an example of the “deep state” inside the Ministry of Education.
“I’ll try to give the benefit of the doubt to the minister of education and the minister for social equality—that they simply don’t know enough about what the deep state is doing right under their noses inside their own ministries,” the lawmaker said during a March 31 Knesset debate.
“That’s what happens when the people elect their representatives and the government changes, but the deep state in the Education Ministry, built through hard work over many years, stays in place,” Maoz said.
Maoz has been criticized over his party’s anti-LGBTQ platform. He has insisted, however, that he has no issue with gay individuals, citing his vote to elect MK Amir Ohana, who is married to a man, as Knesset speaker.