Naftali Bennett
Naftali BennettNoam Revkin Fenton/FLASH90

Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) in an interview on Saturday night said he had spoken to Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon (Kulanu) about finding a budget to shorten school vacations.

"I am doing all I can to help parents find solutions for vacations," Bennett said. "This will be good for the economy, for children, and most importantly, for Israeli parents."

"The current situation is illogical - there is no correlation between parents' vacations and those of their children. I am now looking into several options.

"I am determined to provide a solution to the problem, and I want people to know that I turned to the Finance Minister for help.

"The teachers will not suffer."

Regarding the ethics code, Bennett said, "I think the ethics code will save academia from itself. Do you think it's logical that Israeli professors call on their students to boycott themselves, but continue to receive paychecks from the Israeli public?"

"Does it seem logical to anyone that a university will hold a legal conference with B'tselem, or that it will destroy a student because he does not agree with one of the university's professors?

"The ethical code is mandatory... I intend to find a solution for this untenable situation, which has been the status quo for dozens of years. I am determined to solve the problem."

According to the new ethics code, university professors cannot use their position to promote their own political agendas.

Each institution will be required to establish a unit that will monitor and track the institution's political activity. This may be an existing mechanism such as an Ethics Committee or Student Ombudsman, or a new mechanism that is supposed to be administered by members of the academic staff of that institution.