New Arts School for Israeli Arab Children after Legal Struggle

September 1, 2008

Thirty-three Arab first graders in Haifa have begun studying in a new arts specialization class following a successful legal struggle by veteran NIF grantee Adalah: Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. In the first stage, the arts classes will be within the city’s existing Al-Karma Elementary School, but the plan is to open a full-fledged arts school in the coming years.

Last year, most of the children began their arts education in a private Arabic preschool for the arts run by the Association for the Development for Arab Education in Haifa. But when the Haifa Municipality and Ministry of Education refused to open a public arts class for them, Adalah petitioned the Supreme Court.

Adalah attorney Sawsan Zaher, an NIF Civil Liberties Law Fellow alum, pointed out that there are 25 arts schools around Israel in the Jewish sector, but not one single such school in the Arab sector. The Supreme Court ordered the Haifa Municipality and the Ministry of Education to solve the problem for the Arab first-graders by the start of the school year and to report by November 2008 on plans to build an entire Arab arts school in Haifa.

Following this successful petition, Haaretz newspaper chose Zaher as one of Israel’s 50 most influential people in the education sector.