Nate Bear Do Not Panic
More than half of the 45 mainstream Jewish schools in the UK say a core part of their mission is teaching children to “love Israel,” possibly breaching UK government rules against the promotion of partisan political views in schools. These schools also all organise regular trips to the apartheid state and invite occupation soldiers to speak to pupils, almost certainly breaching rules on political impartiality.
These findings come after a fraudulent report published last week by a UK government taskforce initiated a moral panic about antisemitism in British schools on the basis of just 29 affirmative responses. This tiny number, which should have discredited the report entirely, was omitted from all mainstream media coverage. Also omitted from media coverage of the report was the explicit admission, buried on page 30 of the report, that only anti-Israel attitudes, not anti-Jewish views, have risen in the UK. My identification of this admission has been widely picked up on social media.
The report was a barely concealed attempt to stifle pro-Palestine, anti-genocide views in schools, and to ensure children are instead brainwashed to support genocidal Zionism, as many Jewish children already are.
This brainwashing is extensive and targets tens of thousands of Jewish kids. According to my research, at least 25 of the 45 Jewish schools in the UK considered mainstream or modern Orthodox by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research are explicitly Zionist and heavily promote pro-Israel narratives and teaching. A creepily consistent theme is “love.” Many of these schools say their explicit goal is imbuing the children with “a love for Israel.” The schools in this list are a mix of primary schools (ages 4 to age 11) and secondary schools (ages 11 to 18).
The biggest school on the list, JFS (formerly the Jewish Free School), is a secondary teaching more than 2,100 pupils. It is the UK’s largest Jewish school and the largest Jewish school in Europe. It states on the “vision and values” section of its website that it teaches children “a love of the state of Israel.” In archived pages, the secondary school says that “Israel is at the heart of JFS.” The school runs an Israel Club where students and staff say they “celebrate their love for Israel” and “learn about Israeli culture, food and history.” The school also organises two different trips to Israel for Year 9 students (14-year-olds). One is the two week “Taste of Israel” trip, the other, the Lev Programme, a three month immersion (indoctrination) into Israeli society. In October 2024 students received a presentation from an Israeli soldier where they were taught that the two sides in the Israel-Palestine conflict are “not the same.” Another archived page shows that in May of 2024 the school welcomed the former head of the Israeli military Aviv Kochavi, to speak to students. His talk was titled “The Moral Army.” Another archived page shows that JFS students wrote thank you letters to Brits serving for the occupying forces at the start of the Gaza genocide.
Another large secondary, the Hasmonean High School in Barnet, London, which teaches boys and girls in two separate schools, says that part of its ethos is “to nurture a love of Israel.” The school invites occupation soldiers into its classrooms to speak to children as young as 12 about how to “confront terrorists” in talks which frame Palestinian resistance as terrorism. An article in Jewish News documented how children at Hasmonean immediately began shouting “shoot!” when a regime soldier invited to speak to the class asked the children how they should approach a “suspicious looking person.” The school also organises trips to Israel/occupied Palestine. There is also a mixed gender Hasmonean primary school which operates with the same Zionist ethos, aiming, according to its website, to “inspire a deep love for Israel from an early age.”
Another secondary school, Immanuel College in north London, says that it “cultivates a love for Israel and its central place in Jewish life.” The school celebrates an annual “Israel education day” and says it has been “privileged to host the Israeli ambassador to the UK for three consecutive years.” The school organises a trip to the entity for Year 9 students which parents eulogise as “developing the children’s love for Israel.”
In Liverpool, the King David High School organises trips for year 9 students to live on a kibbutz, as well as trips to Tel Aviv. There is also an “Israel club” for students and teachers which celebrates all things related to the Zionist regime. The prominence of the entity at the school is such that even the tutor groups into which all children are divided “are named after the four regions of Israel.”
Yavneh College in Hertfordshire also explicitly promotes its “Zionist aims” according to Pikuach, an inspection service exclusively for Jewish schools in the UK funded by the British government. Yavneh organises trips to Israel for a wide range of age groups, which parents describe as instilling in their children “an even greater love of Israel.”
The Ronson Jewish Secondary School, opened in 2010 in New Barnet, north London, boasts of “regular visitors and guests from Israel, internet links with pupils in Israeli schools and residential visits to Israel.” The school says the Israeli flag, as well as the British flag, is on prominent display.
At the King Solomon School in London prayers are led by a rabbi “whose nephew was in the IDF.” A report last year by Pikuach inspectors says the prayer session “had a focus on Israeli soldiers involved in the war against Hamas.” The report says that the “Year 7 boys were writing personal letters to the soldiers in the nephew’s unit…thanking them for protecting Israel.” Year 7 children are typically 11 or 12 years old.
The Jewish primary schools in the UK indoctrinating younger children into Zionism are even more numerous than the secondary schools.
Akiva Primary School in Finchley says that a core part of its mission is to “promote a love of Israel.” A Pikuach report says that Akiva “is proud of its Zionist ethos. Knowledge of and a love of Israel permeate the formal and informal curriculum, culminating in a 10-day trip to Israel in Year 6.” Children in year 6 are 10 or 11-years old. The report says that “a highlight of the year for students” is the date the Zionist regime was formally recognised by the UN.
The King David Primary School in Manchester says that, you guessed it, “we instil a love for Israel in our pupils.” On a website section titled identification with Israel, the school states that “children learn about the language and culture of Israel in weekly sessions led by our Israeli gap year students.” They say that Israel’s so-called “independence day” is “a major event in our school diary.” They also say the children “raise money each year for Israeli charities.”
A perverse situation occurs at another King David Primary School, this one in Birmingham. The school, according to a report published by professor David Miller, welcomes occupation soldiers for annual visits, hosts weekly “Israeli” dance classes, and celebrates the official “founding” date of the entity with Hebrew prayers, flag waving and birthday cake. The children also pray to “thank God that he gave us Israel.” However, the perversity is that more than 80% of the children at this Jewish school are Muslims.
Other primary schools which indoctrinate children into the genocidal Zionist ideology include Bury and Whitefield Jewish Primary School, which says it “embodies a love of and commitment to Israel,” and the Mathilda Marks-Kennedy Jewish Primary School in north London (named after the founder of the British food and clothing store Mark’s & Spencer’s). The school is unashamedly pro-genocide, boasting that “the importance of Israel as a land of our heritage, and a belief in Zionism, is key to our schoolethos.” This official ethos was updated and ratified in May 2024, seven months into the genocide of Gaza. It says that “we see Zionism and a love of the state of Israel as important factors in our lives.” That word love again. The school also says it prays daily for the Zionist regime, sends its choir to sing at the Israeli embassy, and has a grant that allows it to provide children with an “Israeli informal education.” It’s not clear what this means.
The North Cheshire Jewish Primary School’s mission statement says that it “nurtures our children’s pride in their Jewish identity and love of Israel” and that all children must have a “strong identity…regarding the state of Israel.”
The Wohl Ilford Jewish Primary School in Essex and Kerem School in London were featured last year in a Jewish News report about schools celebrating their “love” for the state. The Kerem school, the report says, has an “Israel week” in which the school is “turned into a mini-Israel.”
The Independent Jewish Day School is another primary school in London where students are instructed to “develop their love for Israel.” The Pikuach report into this school details assemblies where prayers are said for the genocidal Israeli military and where last year children “prayed for the return of the hostages.”
Beit Shvidler Primary School in Middlesex lists as its second educational aim “instilling a love of Israel,” while the Sinai Jewish Primary School in Kenton says in its vision statement that teachers and pupils must “share a love of the state of Israel.” The Sacks Morasha Jewish Primary School in Southgate, London, also promotes “a love of and commitment to Israel.”
You can find the full list of the openly Zionist, pro-apartheid state Jewish schools at this link. All but one of these are mainstream Jewish and modern Orthodox. The evidence that strict Orthodox Jewish schools have the same cultish adherence to Israel has been harder to find, although Broughton Jewish Cassel Fox Primary School is identifiable as supporting Zionism.
The extent of the Zionist indoctrination being undertaken by Jewish schools in the UK is quite extraordinary. Given that 70% of Jewish children go to Jewish schools, this indoctrination and the sycophantic way Israel is spoken about by these schools raises important questions regarding the integration of Jewish children into society. This figure contrasts with the just 3% of Muslim kids in the UK who attend Islamic schools. And the connections these Jewish schools hold with the Israeli military also raise not just moral, but serious legal questions.
This situation isn’t normal and shouldn’t be accepted as normal.
We’re talking about a significant section of Jewish youth in the UK being brought up to worship a state which has committed genocide. Genocide, the supreme crime in international law. A word which alone barely does justice to the horrors and evils the entity has committed in the last three years, let alone the last seventy-eight of its existence. We’re talking about a state which induced a famine, left babies to rot in incubators, destroyed every university and hospital in Gaza, turned an entire territory which was home to 2 million people to rubble. A state which plunged people into famine then opened up food distribution points and turned them into human safaris. A state which has murdered and maimed tens of thousands of children in all manner of horrific ways. A state which burnt people alive in their hospital beds, a state which tortures and rapes. A state which for decades has enforced an illegal occupation and whose leader is an internationally wanted war criminal.
And this is what many Jewish kids in the UK are being raised to take pride in.
In schools funded by the British government, Jewish children are being commanded to identify with a genocidal state and adopt it as an essential component of their personality.
It’s frightening.
Not that there’ll be any investigations or David Bell-style reports into Zionism in UK schools.
Not that there’ll be any recommendations about de-radicalising these schools.
Those sorts of reports are required only to silence those who oppose apartheid, genocide and the brutality of the Zionist regime.
Meanwhile Zionists will continue to have free rein to poison and pollute young minds.