A group of teachers who make up the Education for Human Rights Forum of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) wrote a strongly worded letter to Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton after multiple parents at their local Herzliya elementary school refused to accept an Arab homeroom teacher. The letter expressed support for the positions of the Ministry of Education, the Herzliya Municipality, and the school’s management, and rejected the racist dictates of the parents.

The letter demanded that the Ministry of Education “show zero tolerance towards racism and act with all the means in its powers…to establish a generation that promotes tolerance and pluralism, [and] respects human rights.”

The letter continued, “We teachers, Arabs and Jews, condemn with disgust the opposition of the parents of the schoolchildren in Herzliya to the appointment of the teacher at the center of this affair. Through this Arab teacher and her readiness to educate Jewish children, the entire community at the school has been given a golden opportunity. This offers the Education Ministry an opportunity to unequivocally clarify that the education system in Israel will not tolerate racism and will work with all the powers at its disposal to eliminate this phenomenon.”