ABSTRACT
The pervasive presence of the national and bureaucratic logic in Israel is to no small degree the outcome of the participation from an early age of children in public events practiced in educational settings. This participation begins in kindergarten and continues through to the end of high school. This Prologue foregrounds the significance accorded to kindergarten and celebration in pre-state Jewish Palestine and then in Israel. Such pedagogical milieus during the Yishuv and then in the State extended beyond the formal educational system as such. Jewish educators and officials have strongly advocated the importance of keeping children and youth within what in Hebrew are called ‘frameworks’, intended to protect, guide, and control youngsters. Building educational frameworks was central to Zionist endeavors. The kindergarten years in Israel may be the most powerful in positioning the small child within experiences of the taxonomic structuring of age categories.
