Haaretz, Aug 25, 2017

I’ll read it to you: “What does the farmer do in the fall? Plows the field, sows seeds and at the end of Sukkot, prays for rain and asks, ‘Bestow dew and rain for blessing upon the face of the earth.’” That’s it? That’s what a farmer does? There’s no fertilizer, no sprinklers, no hothouses, no science? Plows, seeds and prays? This is science?

So, what I want to tell you here, this tendency, regrettably, has become stronger now. When we were asked to write these books, we were always asked to provide quotations from the Scriptures, from the Bible.

Who requested that religion be introduced into science books for the first grade?

It was a request of the Ministry of Education to introduce certain aspects [....]

They said: Put in elements of tradition and Torah and the like. That’s something we were asked to integrate into the books [....]

I told you, I grow vegetables occasionally in the moshav. I do not pray to God. According to your science book, I am not behaving properly scientifically[....]

It’s not requesting its removal. On the contrary. [The Education Ministry is] intensifying these things. We have to see how it will fit in, or say that this is a book for the secular public only. The previous one was for a mixed population.