Textbooks for the Teaching of Hebrew Language and Literature in Israel — A Mirror of Social-Political and Educational Changes

Abstract

This study explores the developments in L1 language and literature textbooks used during the 50 years of the existence of the State of Israel. The current article focuses on textbooks for the teaching of language and literature in Jewish secular junior high schools in Israel. We discuss two different approaches to teaching the Hebrew language and literature: the functional-instrumental approach, spanning some 30 years, from the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 until the late 1980s of the 20th century, and the current scientific-multicultural-liberal approach. We chose four textbooks, two from the 1950s and two from the 1990s, to demonstrate the developmental changes from narrow vision to openness, and from focus on ideological values to focus on the discipline.