Religious Zionist schools cancel summer vacation
Increasing number of schools adopt ultra-Orthodox model of year-round Torah study.
http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.459829.1345590997!/image/4265522615.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_640/4265522615.jpg
Parents and children in Modi’in Ilit waiting for a bus to take them to a school in Beit El.Photo by Gil Cohen Magen
By Tamar Rotem | Aug.22, 2012 | 1:47 AM
Though summer vacation is winding down for most Israeli children, some students at religious schools have spent most of their summers hunkering down with the books instead of going to the beach and eating ice cream.
Eliya Avigad, a seventh-grader at a religious Zionist yeshiva elementary school in Beit El called Sha'arei Shamayim, got only one official day off this summer: the fast day of Tisha B'Av, which commemorates the destruction of the Temple.
School is in even on Independence Day, though the hours are shortened. School isn't actually mandatory during summer vacation, but most of the 260 students show up.
It's not just Sha'arei Shamayim, though. The school represents a growing trend among religious Zionist schools, which are following in the footsteps of their ultra-Orthodox counterparts by reducing vacations so that students can dedicate more time to Torah study and less to other pursuits.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/religious-zionist-schools-cancel-summer-vacation-1.459811