DKJA Students Participate in Mock Election on Same Day Israel Cast its Votes
On the same day the State of Israel was set to elect a new government, students from Claire and Emanuel G. Rosenblatt High School at DKJA cast their votes for who they think should be in the next Knesset.
The two-day event kicked-off with a pre-election assembly, where students from seventh to 11th grade watched the senior class present every party’s platform and explained the reasons each one was running.
“We are using the current elections as an educational opportunity to teach, in both a formal and experiential manner, about Israel’s parliamentary system,” explained High School Principal Rabbi Marshall Lesack. “Conversations not only took place about who may win and what will be good for Israel, but what might be good for the larger global Jewish community.”
The assembly was a spirited event held in the gym, where students waved Israeli flags and held up campaign posters. The elections were the culmination of weeks long study about the campaign and its associated issues and resulted in the DKJA student body saying that Likud Party should retain political control of the state, with a little more than 50-percent of the vote.
“We’re hoping that by doing this program which involves classroom learning, research and presentations, that this will be a memorable and impactful learning experience for our students,” Lesack said.
The mock Israeli elections were just one of the learning opportunities high school students have had so far this year connected to Israel.
“Our approach to Israel education is multi-faceted, as we aim to impart knowledge and help students develop a connection to Israel,” the high school principal explained. “As a community day school, we recognize that there are multiple perspectives on Israel and multiple entry points through which students can find meaning.”
For current students, their entry point begins with the 2019 elections, which saw one of the closest political contests in the nation’s 70-year history.
