Education Minister Limor Livnat announced yesterday that next year\'s curriculum will include three new courses on Jewish tradition and Zionism. Livnat said today that these issues are matters of consensus in Israeli society, \"except for the extreme margins, such as those like [former Education Minister] Yossi Sarid. Actually, I don\'t understand Sarid, because on the one hand he says he is against the program, and on the other hand he says that it was he who started it…\" One course will feature classes in Jewish culture, holidays, Bar/Bat Mitzvah, the weekly Torah portion, Israeli symbols, and important figures in Zionism. It will begin in the junior high school grades, with the intention of instituting it in grades K-12 in the future. In addition, a course entitled \"Love of Homeland\" will be given in elementary school classes, while 10th-graders will study \"Eretz Yisrael and Archaeology,\" with an emphasis on Jerusalem.



Brig.-Gen. Elazar Stern, the IDF\'s chief education officer, has decided to suspend the appearance of the IDF soldiers\' journal BaMachaneh. An IDF statement noted that the magazine has included recent articles that are \"not appropriate.\" It is assumed that the offensive articles include some that insult IDF officers and Air Force pilots, and one about a high-ranking officer who revealed that he is a homosexual.