It numbers in the hundreds and has graduated hundreds of thousands of students.

Jerusalem Agency - Agencies

Jewish religious schools and academies have penetrated deep into the Old City of occupied Jerusalem. Among them are Orthodox religious schools, called “Yeshivot” in Hebrew, in which there are boarding departments for students’ residence.

Most of these schools are concentrated on “Al-Wad Road,” located in the Islamic Quarter, leading to the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, the most prominent of which are:

  1. Ateret Yerushalayim School.
  2. Shovubnim School.
  3. Ateret Eliyahu School.
  4. Torat Chaim School.
  5. Hazoun Yakhrqil School.
  6. Ateret Cohanim School.

History of Jewish education in Jerusalem

Most Jewish religious schools were privately owned during the British Mandate of Palestine, and received limited support from the global Agudath Israel movement.

In 1953, the State Public Education Law was enacted, the second article of which stipulates that “education in the State of Israel must be based on the values of Jewish culture, loyalty to the State of Israel and the Jewish people, and achieving the principles of leadership in Zionist pioneering work.”

After the enactment of this law, the various currents in the educational system in Israel were unified under two frameworks: They are formal education and formal religious education.

These frameworks were subject to the management and supervision of the Ministry of Education. As for the Agudat Israel schools, which had operated until then within the framework of what is known as the “Fourth Stream,” they remained outside the two official frameworks due to the refusal of the ultra-Orthodox to integrate into them for fear of harming their independence.

They were granted a special status under the law after opposition from extremist Orthodox elements, who warned that the Ministry of Education’s supervision - even partial - of these schools would harm the independence of Orthodox education.

Thus, ultra-Orthodox (independent) education was established by the Council of Torah Elders in Agudat Israel, and among its most prominent founders were Rabbi Hillel Lieberman, Rabbi Pinchas Levin, and Rabbi Moshe Baruch in Jerusalem.

Jewish religious education in numbers

In 2015, 240 schools operated within the framework of independent religious education, and about 90,000 male and female students studied in them, and in 2021, about 113,000 male and female students received their education in 285 Jewish (Haredi) religious schools.

With the opening of the 2021-2022 academic year, the Orthodox Education Department in the Jerusalem Municipality was considered the largest among the education departments in Israel, as 300 schools and academies falling under this strict educational umbrella include 3,000 classrooms in which 120,000 male and female students learn.

At the beginning of the same school year, the mayor of the occupation, Moshe Leon, decided to allocate a budget to the ultra-Orthodox education system in the city, which included more than 100 million shekels (about 29 million US dollars) for renovations, equipment, and construction.

The ultra-Orthodox Jews (Haredim) also considered that the mayor recorded a historic achievement when he allocated for the first time a building for teaching Talmud in the center of Jerusalem, where students studied “Talmud Torah” under the supervision of Rabbi Haim Orelvik, and the institute was established in a spacious building on Bezalel Street in the occupied city.

What do students receive in Jewish religious schools?

Students in the Orthodox community - especially males - do not have the opportunity to study basic scientific subjects such as science, English, mathematics, and general knowledge, and their education is limited to religious studies only.

Non-Orthodox religious schools adhere to national Jewish religious education, and education in this type of school is conducted according to the official educational curriculum of the Israeli Ministry of Education, so that students finish their education in all prescribed subjects and take the high school exams (matriculation).

In these schools, a deeper emphasis is placed on teaching the Torah, the Mishnah, Jewish laws, religious doctrines, and the Jewish religious vision of central issues in life and society.

Most of these schools have boarding departments that give religious people more time to study and delve into religious topics such as philosophy and religious interpretations, and learn the foundations of observing the Sabbath and how to respect this day for its superior sanctity in Jewish religious circles.

Students live in a state of isolation from their surrounding environment, and their reference is the clergy, not their parents. Some of these schools and academies stand behind the positions and operations carried out by extremist organizations, such as the repeated attempts to demolish Al-Aqsa, the attack on the Ibrahimi Mosque, the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, and the 80% support of the religious Jewish community for the army. Israel in its bloody measures against the Palestinians.

The Jewish Talmud provides clear commandments to build the “Third Temple” in place of the Dome of the Rock prayer hall in the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the commandments related to the rituals of presenting temple offerings occupy a third of the Torah, so religious Jews consider that being in Al-Aqsa Mosque is tantamount to “fulfilling the greatest possible amount of commandments in implementation of the will of God".

Extremist Temple organizations have infiltrated the Israeli educational system, as they are still active in government schools, institutes, colleges, and religious schools. These organizations work to forcefully impose on students the versions of the Temple movements in Jewish history, ideology, and belief, especially with regard to “the Temple Mount and the longing and desire for Establishing the Third Temple.

The Religious Education Department raised the slogan “Jerusalem and Zion: The Longing for Realization, and from Vision to Reality” for its 2009-2010 academic year, and Temple related matters appeared clearly in the educational content, in addition to the Religious Education Department taking a vital role in designing the curriculum.

Methods were then proposed for integrating Temple studies with the traditional fields of geography, history, and the Talmud, building models of the Temple Mount and the Temple, writing prayers, songs, and short stories about Jerusalem and the longing for the Temple, and carrying out visits to the Temple Institute and other religious institutes and places.

The privacy of working in Jerusalem

Since the sacred vision is what guides the work of the rabbis and students in these religious schools, they consider their work in Jerusalem as a mission and a duty that not only achieves the highest goals of the nation, but is a “divine will.”

They also believe that their presence in Jerusalem fills their lives with faith and pride, and that living in this city is linked to eternal value.

These beliefs push their owners to combine national and religious ideas, which has often led to igniting religious conflict between Muslims and these ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Such beliefs have prompted Jewish extremists, for example, to repeatedly burn Islamic places of worship, and to link the idea of the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque to the construction of the Third Temple.

In addition to the mission of these schools to teach religious sciences, they take advantage of their presence in the Old City of Jerusalem to monitor the population presence within the Arab neighborhoods.