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The target of Netanyahu’s latest take-over attempt: The Holocaust

Opinion Editor's Choice

Democracy is the forgotten lesson in Israeli schools.

Dina Kraft

As Israel edges from blistering summer vacation into back-to-school September, temperatures, both of the political and climate variety, continue to soar.

Even tensions imported from abroad have landed here in the form of bloody clashes over the weekend between supporters and opponents of the regime in Eritrea. Diddy Mymin Kahn calls for the public to resist Netanyahu's call for a mass deportation of all African asylum seekers in response, recalling the heavy historical weight the word "deportation" should have for Jews.

The Holocaust also looms for Menachem Menachem Z. Rosensaft, who argues Netanyahu is trying to turn Yad Vashem into his political puppet. Thomas O. Falk argues a post-war taboo against including extremist right-wing political parties in the government is about to be broken in Germany.

In Israel, even the classroom is a battlefield: Ittay Flesher writes that disproportionately high budgets for state religious schools are part of an ideological fight for Israel's democratic future that the secular left is finally waking up to.
Palestinian musician Tamar Nafar writes a very personal take on the toll of homicide wave in Arab towns and cities where "the pain has become unbearable," and Lisa Namdar Kaufman joins a protest in song for women's rights and articulates why women living through this political moment in Israel are terrified.

And if you still need a nudge to watch Adam Sandler's "You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah," Matthew Schultz explains why he thinks Netflix finally does good by the Jews in this movie.