Music Education in Israel: Has the Essence Changed Since 1936?

Abstract

Menashe Rabinovitz, head of music schools in Tel Aviv and Haifa in British Mandate Palestine, reported in May 1936 to the Tel Aviv municipality’s Education and Culture division, about the First International Conference of the Society for Music Education he had attended that April in Prague as Tel Aviv’s delegate. Comparing his insights to the present state of music education in the State of Israel, some positive changes are identified. These include a national curriculum for music teaching in primary schools; the supervision of music classes by an officially appointed general inspector; the promotion of school choirs, and the offering of subsidized concerts by professional musicians in schools. The singing repertoire in the Hebrew-speaking state schools remains essentially unchanged: a variety of songs in Hebrew are its core, responding to the multicultural and heterogeneous Israeli society.