The Education Ministry has decided to reconsider implementing the Lev Leviev Foundation’s Zman Masa (Journey Time) curriculum for the upcoming school year, on two conditions - chopping out most Orthodox Jewish faith-based references and making sure that only teachers within the state system are allowed to teach it.

The program, which was designed to bolster Jewish identity, would have large pieces rewritten, such as those subjects that refer to Jewish ritual hand-washing, how to tell the difference between kosher and non-kosher animals and information on the Holy Temple and its ritual vessels. References to the Leviev Foundation -- which created and funded the program -- will be deleted from title pages.

--Exodus ship survivor Frances Goldberg, 88, of Pittsburgh, will be one of 210 new immigrants to arrive in Israel. Greenberg tried to make aliyah in 1947 after having survived the Holocaust by fleeing from Poland to Siberia. She left a displaced persons camp in the middle of the night and boarded the SS Exodus for Israel. The British army torpedoed and tear-gassed the ship, killing several passengers. The others, including Greenberg, were forced to return to France and then to Germany rather than arrive in Israel and increase the Jewish presence in Palestine, which was there under a League of Nations mandate.

Three Years Ago Today at IsraelNN
One person was killed and several others injured in a Hizbullah rocket barrage on the Mediterranean Coast town of Nahariya in the northwest corner of Israel. 

--Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a United Nations delegation that Hizbullah terrorists must return two kidnapped IDF soldiers and that Israel’s security must be guaranteed.

--Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres (Kadima) said that experience has shown that Israel cannot rely on United Nations peacekeeping troops to keep Israel safe from Hizbullah terrorists.