When the organisation Hope Not Hate surveyed teachers in England two years ago, only half felt confident about discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the classroom.
A hesitant teacher might be excused for wanting to avoid such a potentially contentious subject. But that is not the way for Rabbi Dr Glenn Bezalel. Two years ago, he published a textbook, Teaching Classroom Controversies, to help colleagues broach difficult topics. Confronting them, he believes, can help students to improve their critical thinking. It actually includes a chapter on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Schools, he says, “are the place for teaching controversy because it is a safe environment; it’s regulated”. If pupils are not exploring them at school, “they’ll be doing it online”.
A deputy head at one of London’s most famous public schools, City of London Boys, for the past three years, where he oversees teaching and learning and teaches religion and philosophy, he is one of the Jewish community’s most qualified educators, with two master’s degrees – one in religious education – a doctorate and rabbinic ordination. But even if his passion for teaching is palpable, it was not his original career choice.
Now 47, he grew up in Chigwell of mixed Sephardi parentage, his father having left Afghanistan as a baby and his mother coming from a Moroccan background. Attending Wohl Ilford Primary School and JFS, he says he enjoyed “inspiring” Jewish studies teachers from an early age, particularly in the few months he spent in Israel on JFS’s Givat Washington residential scheme.
After school, he deepened his love of Jewish study at two Israeli yeshivot, Kerem B’Yavneh and Har Etzion.
“My best teachers presented different perspectives and allowed us to really think hard for ourselves, and that’s something I’ve been wedded to.”
After a law degree at Manchester University and a master’s in international relations at LSE, he moved into the world of high finance as an equity analyst at JP Morgan. But before taking up the position, he taught Jewish studies for a couple of terms at JFS, where “I got the bug”.
When life in a glass tower proved unfulfilling, he returned to JFS, developing its text study programme. He moved for a year to Yavneh College, before taking a job in the independent sector, at St Helen’s girls’ school, where he rose to be an assistant head.
Somehow, he also managed to complete a doctorate at Cambridge University on conspiracy theories, as well as the Montefiore Endowment semichah course in London, which enables participants to study part-time. The burden of doing both was “huge” he says but “wholly enjoyable”.
The culture of argument nurtured by the yeshivah is one he believes could profitably be exported more widely. “It’s part of my DNA,” he says. “I think the yeshivah environment is one that thrives on controversy in the sense of debate – machloket. And whereas the typical English mode of study might be quietly in the library with my books, in Torah, it’s the loud hubbub of [the study hall].”
That tradition is “an amazing part of Jewish learning I think we can – and should – be bringing more to the world”.
When it comes to discussing controversy in the classroom, experience has shown the need for a holistic approach. Through work he has been doing with a Cambridge colleague, he believes “it is naive to look at it in a narrow epistemic, academic way.
“So to think that if I bring all the facts to you, that will help you change your mind, the research shows that that just isn’t true.”
He gives the example of an ardent American climate change sceptic. “What research shows is climate change sceptics are generally better well read on the issues than climate change realists.”
But they are also highly ideological and wedded to a particular world view, he says.
“So if I got every Nobel Prize winner under the sun to tell them climate change is a problem, in fact, it will make them more resolute in their beliefs.”
But if he brought in Donald Trump – “assuming they love Donald Trump” – to tell them climate change was a problem, it might have an impact.
“If I’ve got a teacher in the classroom I really trust and that I know has got my back and cares for me, I’m much more willing to believe what they say and have trust in them – rather than just to think facts, facts, facts – that sort of Gradgrind approach – will somehow change minds. It just won’t.”
So what comes even above the academic content, he argues, is the pastoral care and the values of the school. On any given controversy, the nature of the relationships is a crucial component. What you can never have is “teachers who become preachers”.
On a subject like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he will use various techniques – for example, one that stresses “intellectual humility”. If there are pupils with strong views on either side, one thing he does is to ask them “to name me five Palestinians and five Israelis – by the way, no pupil has never been able to do that in my experience”.
And if they cannot do that, it might show them that they have something to learn.
“The other thing I’d do is, on any given topic, if someone has very, very strong views about something, I’ll raise what’s called ‘the principle of charity’. The first question I’ll ask is: ‘I want to imagine that you’ve just heard your views and you are now coming from the complete opposite perspective. Give me the most articulate argument about why you’re wrong.’”
Meanwhile, his rabbinic training is put to good use. He teaches an extra-curricular Gemara class at City, a school which remains popular with Jewish pupils. “The liberal nature of the school is precisely one that allows Jewish life to thrive in a powerful way.” He also jointly teaches a high-level halachah shiur for women at the London School of Jewish Studies.
His five children all go to Hasmonean, and he recently became a governor of JFS. Although he does not rule out a return to the Jewish school fold, he says: “I’m very happy where I am.” The opportunities afforded him in the private sector “were just too good to pass up on”.
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