1.
At the root of the dispute tearing us apart lies a question of purpose. We are bound together by a shared fate, yet struggle to agree on our collective mission. If only this were the substance of public discourse, which at times descends into appalling verbal violence. If only we argued more about ideology and less about personal accusations.
At the end of every public debate remains the same question: who will steer the Zionist ship. In theory, this debate should be settled at the ballot box, through the will of the people. You must be joking. Democracy, it turns out, is a material that can be kneaded to our needs, because what good is it if we do not control it.
2.
And so, it seems that opposition to every bill advanced by the coalition stems from a classic case of "moving the cheese." Psychological experiments examined how mice recalculate their route through a maze rather than acting out of habit. The cheese was the reward. The mice followed instinct, and when the cheese was moved, they searched for it elsewhere.
Author Spencer Johnson turned this into a parable about human nature, which, unlike the mouse, develops an emotional and ideological attachment to its "cheese." From this perspective, the cheese belongs exactly where it is. When it is moved, anger follows, along with blame cast at others. Often, people are left waiting, hungry, for reality to return to its "normal" order.
3.
I was reminded of this parable when I encountered the bill proposed by MK Avihai Boaron to amend the Council for Higher Education Law in order to strengthen transparency and public oversight of the council. During Israel's first 29 years, the budgets of universities and higher education institutions were under the authority of the council and subject to supervision by the Education Ministry. There was no need to change the arrangement, since everyone belonged to the same political and cultural ecosystem. The barbarians had not yet arrived.
Then came the political upheaval. Likud, led by Menachem Begin, won the election, and suddenly there was a need to protect the cheese. This happened in the courts, as the High Court of Justice gained greater weight relative to the Knesset. It also happened in academia. Begin won on May 17, 1977, and his first government was sworn in on June 20. What occurred in between deserves close study.
4.
The Planning and Budgeting Committee is a powerful body responsible for distributing billions of shekels to higher education institutions. Before the political upheaval, it functioned as a subcommittee of the Council for Higher Education. In the narrow window between the change of government, the outgoing transitional government managed to turn the committee into an independent body, allocating budgets not according to the will of the people, but according to the will of professors guarding the cheese, much like the judiciary.
Nearly fifty years later, the time has come to move the cheese. The proposed legislation seeks to democratize the council and the Planning and Budgeting Committee by bringing in additional representatives from Israel's periphery and from academic colleges, and by giving elected officials a measure of influence. Do not worry, this will not affect course content. Academia, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, will remain largely the domain of a well-known Ashkenazi secular elite, as defined by sociologist Baruch Kimmerling under the acronym ACHUSAL, similar to the American WASP, standing for the Israeli hegemonic class: Ashkenazi, secular, old guard, socialist, nationalist. Today, I would drop the nationalist component.
5.
There is no pluralism in academia, only indoctrination and politicization. Had the Jewish house of study behaved like Israeli academia, we would today be familiar only with the School of Shammai and not the School of Hillel, with Rashi but not Nachmanides, and so on. Regrettably, this bill will not solve that problem. But at the very least, it will temper the dominance of a particular group within academia in relation to the Israeli public at large, and to their students in particular.
