Former Education Minister and staunch Meretz leftist Yossi Sarid said he was "disgusted" by reports that began surfacing on Saturday evening, indicating that Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett is requesting to be education minister in coalition talks.
"I am disgusted by the mere thought that the most extreme nationalist in the government could be put in charge of the education of our children and grandchildren," Sarid told Jerusalem Post. "The thought of it is absolutely atrocious."
Sarid, who served in the role from 1999 to 2000, noted how Bennett originally demanded the foreign or defense portfolio, but after being rebuffed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu turned his sights on the Education Ministry.
"The Education Ministry should only be entrusted to someone who cared about the issue his whole life, not a man who claims to have fallen in love with education over the last few days,” Sarid said. “The only question is how much damage he will do. I hope not too much."
The former education minister said he was concerned that Bennett would build yeshiva and seminary religious schools on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism.
Amnon Rubinstein, also a former Meretz education minister, told the paper that Bennett used his post as religious affairs minister in the outgoing government to "proselytize" in secular schools, saying "secular schools must be protected from the missionary activity that Bennett is prone to support."
In response, former Education Minister Yitzhak Levy of the Jewish Home's predecessor Mafdal party said: "secular Israelis have no reason to fear Bennett as education minister, just like they did not have to fear me and religious Israelis did not have to fear (former Labor education minister) Yuli Tamir. The Education Ministry serves everyone."
Sarid and Rubinstein's criticism follows on the heels of statements by Meretz head Zehava Galon, who warned Sunday that Bennett's appointment would be "dangerous," and threatened to use various tools to oppose him.