Ministry of Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan Baku International Multiculturalism Centre Azerbaijani Multiculturalism Textbook for Higher Education

1. Schools where the language of instruction is Russian (20.3%);

2. 
   Schools where the language of instruction is Russian, but the mother tongue is taught as a discipline: Ukrainian – 55, Gagauz – 32, Jewish – 2, Polish – 1, German – 1;
   

2. 
   Experimental schools where the language of instruction is the mother tongue in the primary and secondary stages in separate classes (Ukrainian and Bulgarian). *
   

Schools with Russian-language instruction are also considered educational institutions for the national minorities.

• 
  These figures are from 2006. Никитченко А. Система образования к полиязыч-
  

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     ному и мультикультурному образованию. Материалы международной конфе-ренции, 5-6 декабря 2006. Кишинэу, 2008, стр. 61-73.
     

On 4 May 2016, a branch of Baku International Multiculturalism Centre opened in the capital of the Republic of Moldova. The executive director of the branch is the well-known lawyer, former Ombudsman Aurelia Grigoriu.


7.16. Multiculturalism in Israel

The Holocaust was the result of the policy of anti-Semitism pursued by the ruling circles of the Third Reich during World War II. The word holocaust in translation from the Greek means ‘completely burnt’ or ‘reduced to ashes’. It is used in both broad and narrow meanings. In its broad meaning it is a massacre that physically exterminates people and social groups. But in its narrow meaning holocaust means the genocide carried out against the Jews. From the beginning of World War II Hitler’s Nazi Germany sought to exterminate the Jews and decided to settle them in ghettos created in Polish territory. During World War II approximately six million Jews were murdered as a result of massacres not only in the Nazi Germany of Hitler, but also in the territories of Europe occupied by Germany, as well as in the USSR. During World War II, the majority of the Jews exposed to fascist oppression were exterminated in the concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Oswiecim, Sobibor, Treblinka, Plaszow, and Dachau. Only a few Jewish prisoners survived. The United Nations adopted a resolution declaring 27 January Holocaust Memorial Day from 2005.

The Jews exposed to the tragedy of the Holocaust were able to create their state in the aftermath of World War II. According to the resolution of the UN General Assembly, dated 29 January 1947, the independent Israeli state was declared on the territory of Palestine from 14 May 1948. Since then Israel has used the melting

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pot model of multiculturalism implemented in the USA to manage its ethnocultural diversity. Today 42% of world Jews live in Israel. Newcomers from the diaspora maintain their past but also enter the process of integration into Zionist culture on the basis of the melting pot system. According to figures from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development one million four thousand Jews moved to Israel from different countries in the last 25 years. Israel is now attempting to unify the idea of nationalism (a ‘Zionist state’ or ‘Jewish state’) with the notion of a modern liberal state. The first term refers to the number of Jews and the latter to the symbols and values based on Jewish traditions. As a liberal democratic state with a system of cultural autonomy, Israel guarantees the rights of all citizens. The guarantee of these rights is at a higher level than in some developed European countries.

For decades Jewish leaders gave up the idea of Israeli imperialism. In this sense, Israel is a common Jewish project. In surveys of Jewish youth in the USA 20 per cent of respondents say that Israel occupies an important place in their identity. In order to be an Israeli, you need to be part of it in some way. But this does not mean that you should deny the Jewish state and democracy.

Until the early 1960s a cultural war was under way between the Arabic and Hebrew languages. Even, the publication of newspapers in Hebrew was prohibited. In the 1970s about 700,000 Arabs moved to Israel from the Arab countries.

When the melting pot began to fail in the 1970s and 80s, another Israel seemed to emerge on the political arena. With the emergence of the Black Panther movement, society was ready to recognize ‘the other’ in the management of culture. As a consequence, delimitation occurred between the first and second elite cultures of Israel which had found their place in mass culture; in other words, distinctions appeared in all sorts of things, from music to clothes, even in traditional management.

In the 1990s the situation changed again. Israel was ready to welcome a wave of immigrants known as the ‘golden million’. These were the newcomers from the former Soviet Union who included many lawyers, journalists and army officers. Many of them were specialists in education, high technology and other fields, who were lacking in the traditional first and second elite of Israel.

The term ‘golden million’ referred to the million Jews who came from the former Soviet Union. They are called the new Ashkenazis

– the third Israel. They also include Sephardi Jews from Central Asia and the south Caucasus. Israeli society accepted it. In the 1970s, had you asked someone what he thought about having a school, a kindergarten, a newspaper and a television channel in Russian, he would have replied, ‘Why?’ Now they answer would be ‘Why not?’

One of the major symbols of Israeli multiculturalism is Jerusalem

– the Holy City. As the centre of three world religions, the city attracts many tourists.

Roughly 7,000 Jewish families moved from Azerbaijan to Israel. They were Ashkenazi (European) Jews and Mountain (Sephardi)

Jews who moved there in the early 1990s. According to unofficial information, 7,000 or 8,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis live in Israel. They have mainly settled in the cities of Acre, Haifa, Hadera and Tel Aviv. Some 53,000 Mountain Jews from Azerbaijan live in Akko, where they form 12 per cent of the population. They never forget Azerbaijan and always remember the Land of Fire. In this sense, multiculturalism has an old history in Israel and has already become reality.

On 3 May 2016, the Israeli branch of the Baku International Multiculturalism Centre was established in Israel. Its executive director is the political scientist Arye Gut.

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