The kind of education Israeli kids could get

Poignantly set forth by Robert Gordis. Israeli education is heavily oriented to getting a matriculation certificate and getting a job. Important things, no doubt. But on the way, Israeli young people could be much more challenged to engage in reading, thinking, and discoursing for their own sakes--and could get much more educated. So far as I know, Gordis's Shalem Center is doing great pioneering work in this area. I hope it catches on. The abandonment of Western civ (and in Israel's case, for the "secular" majority, of the roots of Jewish civ as well) is a far-reaching and ominous Western malaise. Someone who gets some kind of advanced degree and has no idea what Genesis, Plato, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy are is someone who may achieve great professional heights but is not educated.