ABSTRACT
The strongly centralized educational system dealt with all problems pertaining to the curriculum, as well as the employment of teachers, while problems of finance and administration were dealt with in conjunction with the local authorities. From the mid-1970s, there has been true educational progress, developing special curricula, and redefining different aspects of the collective heritage. The themes of security and heroism, of the Holocaust, of the revision of the relations between the Galut and Eretz-Israel history became incorporated, even if often in ambivalent ways, into the Israeli collective identity. Two elements of this identity became easily identifiable: first there was a strong, local, Israeli patriotism, but, second, the exact contours of Israeli self-identity, in relation to the broad framework of Jewish tradition and Jewish communities, no longer defined Jewish identity in terms of a minority group or culture.
