By, Shira Rubin
1 min read
ByShira Rubin, Shira Rubin
Israeli parents reacted with shock when their toddlers were sent home from nursery school wearing yellow "Jude" patches as part of Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorations.
"Shocked, completely stunned, find it hard to speak, refuse to understand," one mother from Rishon Lezion wrote on Facebook, alongside a picture of her three-year-old daughter with the yellow Star of David fixed to her shirt.
The mother said that forcing a toddler to wear the emblem was an "appalling and unacceptable" way to teach the painful period in Jewish history.
"Can every nursery school teacher do whatever comes into her mind? Is there no supervision and direction about the implications of such an act?" wrote the mother.
In response to the incident last week, the local municipality said the teacher had been suspended and summoned to a hearing.
For the past year the Education Ministry has implemented Holocaust studies as a compulsory part of the curriculum, from kindergarten through to high school.
But parents have suggested young children could potentially be traumatised by the methods used.
In a separate case in Tel Aviv, fourth-grade children were given a worksheet entitled "The Final Solution Plan".
They were instructed to imagine life in a concentration camp and draft a fictitious conversation between themselves and a Nazi officer.