Moshe Shriki, director of the social leadership college Mimizrach Shemesh, strives to instill Mizrahi culture — the heritage of Jewry from Islamic lands — in his students, but it is not always easy. “The book ‘Faith and Redemption’ is a perfect example,” Shriki told Al-Monitor. “It’s a Jewish thought textbook for the public religious school system, published in 2014. The book covers 160 Jewish thinkers, only one of whom is Mizrahi.”
In September 2015, “Faith and Redemption” caused an uproar in Israel as another example of the exclusion of Mizrahi culture and history from the Israeli curriculum. “We put together an alternative list of 30-40 Mizrahi thinkers and presented it [to the Education Ministry]. Now they have added an optional list of Mizrahi philosophers to the existing book. That is, the teacher can choose whether to teach about them or not,” said Shriki.
