Jewish, Arab Israelis answer policy with kisses

Tel Aviv – Israeli magazine TimeOut has posted a video of Jewish and Arab Israelis kissing in front of the camera in response to a controversial book rejected by the education ministry.The video comes after the ministry last week decided not to include a novel that describes a love story between an Israeli woman and a Palestinian man in the Israeli high school curriculum, inciting outrage in Israel, with many calling the decision racist.

TimeOut said in the article accompanying the video on its website: “The best answer to another week filled with blood, racism, censorship and existential fear, is opening your heart to a video kissing project that crosses sectors and genders.”

Intimate relations between Jews and non-Jews threaten the identity of Israel’s ethnic groups and encourages assimilation, the committee which compiles the school curriculum said last week.

An education ministry spokesperson has stressed that teachers can continue to discuss and read the book – Borderlife by Dorit Rabinyan – with high school students, but pupils would not be able to choose it as part of their final school exams.

Sales of the book, which won the 2015 Bernstein prize by the Book Publishers Association of Israel, have surged since the ministry’s decision.