TEACHERS ASSOCIATION JUBILEE

The Teachers’ Association was established in 1930 at a gathering of teachers in Zikhron Yaakov. The initiative came from Menahem Ussishkin who was visiting Eretz Israel at the time. Of the estimated 100 teachers in the country, 59 attended the meeting. The associations declared aims were to improve the educational facilities in the country, to work for the revival of the Hebrew language and to instill a national Jewish spirit in the schools, and to improve teachers’ conditions. In its first ten years the Teachers’ Association did much to found the Hebrew school system. It chose the Sephardi pronunciation for general use and established committees to innovate Hebrew terminology for subjects in the modern curriculum (one of the first areas was physical education). Among other activities the association published textbooks and teaching manuals.

The Teachers’ Association’s most meaningful achievement was the institution of Hebrew as the language of instruction in the country’s schools. Competition from other well-established European languages, particularly German, was stiff but the Hebrew-oriented teachers prevailed.

In the 1920s the Association began to address the issue of improved conditions for teachers, an ongoing endeavor.

In the mid-1990s the majority of Israel’s more than 85,000 teachers were affiliated with the association.

The stamp bearing a lighted oil lamp marks the 50th anniversary of the organizations establishment. The tab repeats the lamp and is inscribed in Hebrew and French with "Jubilee of the Teachers’ Association".