Israel Matzav

What do they do on Jewish fast days?

In Israel, university starts at the end of the Jewish holidays sometime in October and classes end in February. Then there are exams, one week off (if that) and classes start again and run until sometime in June. Exams end in mid-to-late July. Assuming there are no strikes....

Because of things like army reserve duty and female students giving birth, exams traditionally have a first sitting and a second sitting. People who are not satisfied with their grades in the first sitting can retake the exam in the second sitting and try to improve their grades. If they retake the exam, only the second sitting counts.

This month, the universities are having second sittings (called moed bet) for exams.

Ramadamadan started last week. At al-Quds Hebrew University, the university has been especially accommodating.

The leftwing student group Kulanu is boasting of its achievements vis a vis the Hebrew University Students Association. For the month of Ramadan, Muslim students will automatically be able to retake any exams. In addition, a classroom will temporarily be converted into a mosque. All university forms will also be translated into Arabic.

As a result of the changes, some Jewish students have complained that the Muslim students are receiving preferential treatment.

It means they are entitled to a third sitting of exams - those are extremely rare in the university system here. Moreover, traditionally, the second sitting of an exam is harder than the first one, which is a disincentive to just taking an exam over and over again. Will a third sitting be even harder? Unlikely.

Yes, there is 'affirmative action' for Arabs in the public university system here (which includes most of the universities you have likely heard of), but it works differently in Israel than it does in the US (I don't know how it works in Europe). In the US, at least when I was a student, there was 'affirmative action' in admissions, but once you were there you were held to the same standards as everyone else. That's not true here. The 'affirmative action' students get extra points added to their grades. One of my daughters, who studied in one of the public universities, reported that a very high percentage of her class was Arabs, and that there was rampant cheating among them.

Finally, what happens when exams are scheduled on Jewish fast days? For example, the fasts of the 17th of Tamuz and the 9th of Av both fell within the second semester exam period (first sitting) this year. Do the Jews get to retake them without taking harder exams? Are exams scheduled on those days?

/Sick of political correctness.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:50 AM