San Diego, CA (special) -- Many commentators believe that Jewish society in Israel is divided exclusively into two bitterly quarreling factions: a small percentage of the population which is "religious" and "Orthodox" and the vast majority of the population which is "secular."

Rabbi Benjamin Segal, president of the Conservative movement's Schechter Institute in Jerusalem, likens that image to a moving picture of a storm-tossed sea. Viewers wouldn't realize from such a movie that under the waves, there is a strong counter-current.

During a visit last week to San Diego, Segal cited the growth of the TALI school movement in Israel as one reason for his optimism. An American born rabbi who immigrated to Israel with his family just after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Segal explained that TALI is an acronym for the Hebrew words Tigbor Limudei Yahudot, which means "more Jewish learning."

To date, 42 of Israel's 2,000 "secular" Jewish schools have adopted the TALI program using a law that says 25 percent of a school's curriculum may be determined by a vote of the parents. Except for the fact that the Schechter Institute is not geared up to train TALI teachers more quickly, Segal says, even more schools would be in the program

"We are growing at a rate of 10-12 schools a year and I would not be surprised if in five years we are up to 20-25 schools a year" Segal said in an interview. "I would expect and hope that the TALI school system becomes the largest school system in Israel."

Some Americans have a misconception that in Israel's secular schools, religion is as avoided a topic as it is in the United States. But this is not so. "The annual Jewish holiday cycle does work its way into every school," Segal said. "So as Rosh Hashanah comes, the schools will do something, each in its own way. As Pesach comes, the same. The secular school system is not devoid of Jewish content."

Beyond teaching about Jewish holidays, the "secular" schools also teach Jewish religious subjects for five hours a week. One hour may be devoted to a study of the Bible, another hour to a study of the Talmud, and yet another hour may be allocated to studying Jewish history, Segal said.

"However," the rabbi added, this curriculum is taught formally and mechanically and "is not relevant to the kids. It is very far from their life styles. Why are they studying a piece of rabbinic literature? Why are they studying Jeremiah? Because it is there, but that is insufficient to interest a child. It may be sufficient for you and me, but it is insufficient for a child."

In the same school, after parents have voted to introduce the TALI program, the number of hours devoted to Jewish studies are increased from five to eight or more. In the TALI school, Segal said, "the curriculum will be integrated. For example, in the second grade you won't study an hour of Bible, an hour of Talmud, an hour of literature. Instead, you might say that the subject will be 'how do you relate to other family members, parents and siblings?' and you will study that in various ways. 

"You might be studying the Joseph story in the Bible, the laws of honoring parents in medieval literature, etcetera, but these will be integrated back and forth, and you will have a unit for three to four months in something that is relevant to the child-- how they relate.

 "In twelfth grade, the subject might be sex ethics," Segal added. "What you are doing is looking at the Jewish tradition as an evolving, exciting, real living tradition which has something to say about what your life is about and not just another chapter of Jeremiah or a rabbinic text. This is not world-shaking; it is not revolutionary in any educational sense, but it is revolutionary in terms of what in Israel has been missing."

Acceptance for the program, in Segal's view, reflects a desire on the part of "secular" Jews to become more conversant with their traditions and literature without having religion--especially what they view as unnecessarily restrictive, rule-laden religion--forced upon them.

Segal said many who embrace the TALI concept agree with his feeling that "it is wrong for someone to graduate high school in Israel and be scared to go to synagogue because they won't know what might be asked of them. And that is what happens in the secular school system because there is no experience. 'God forbid! They will give me tefillin!" (a secular graduate might think). "God forbid! They will ask me to have an aliyah! What will I do? How will I open the pages?'"

In Segal's view, TALI schools will enhance the development of pluralistic thinking among Israeli Jews, as it will demonstrate the fluidity of Jewish thought. TALI students "are going to see that if they studied...how you relate to your parents, and how that has developed across 2,000-3,000 years of text, that they can't go back at the age of 26 and presume that all texts have been the same, that there has been no development."

Notwithstanding his view of TALI's likely effect on Israeli society, Segal said the school system has support from across the spectrum of Jewish religious belief, literally from the most secular to the most ultra Orthodox.

Why would ultra-Orthodox support such a non-fundamentalist approach? Segal was asked.

The Conservative rabbi told of a meeting with a former minister of education, who was Orthodox. The minister said "there are two million Jews out there who want to learn about candle lighting and they won't let me teach them about it. You can teach them about candle lighting; therefore you are my partner."

Segal said he surmised that the minister believed "ultimately he would have the chance to make his case for an Orthodox life style to the next generation, but if this generation doesn't know about candle lighting, and doesn't know about the texts, then he has no chance of doing that. For his purposes, I am his partner. For my purposes also. 

"Look, if I am teaching about candle lighting, but I haven't gotten a child after eight years of grammar school to commit to a Conservative halachic style of living, have I achieved my goal? I haven't achieved everything, but as an educator I have achieved a lot of my goals. "

Sometimes opposition to the TALI program comes not from religious parties but from "parents who say 'Ah, you are spear-carriers for the Orthodox and ultra Orthodox. You are trying to break in and change my child's life,'" Segal said.

"Remember they do not have a model in Israel of non-invasive Jewish life....Their entire life experience with religion is coercive: people forcing them to get married a certain way, get buried a certain way, not travel on a road; for them religion means what they can be forced to do."

Once it is explained that TALI is intended to familiarize them with the ideas of Judaism, without requiring them to observe the rituals, many parents are willing to give the idea a try, he said. 

"There are schools where parents organize and say 'we want a TALI school' and another group rises up and says, 'We won't do this' and fights them, and the school doesn't get started. That still exists, but less and less because the more TALI grows, the more people can visit these schools and say 'this isn't bad.'"

The first TALI school was started about 20 years ago in the French Hill area of Jerusalem by Jews who came from America, and missed the kind of non-Orthodox Jewish learning available in some day schools and supplemental Hebrew schools, Segal said.

The movement grew slowly because, for many years, efforts were made to first persuade a group of parents, who then would try to persuade the school to adopt the TALI program, almost always encountering resistance, either from other parents or from school officials who felt threatened.

About eight years ago, the Conservative movement decided to change its approach to how these schools should be fostered. Leaders decided to approach the schools first; show the administrators and teachers how a TALI program works, and how the curriculum can be adapted by the school to local needs. They explained that just as TALI would not force any one religious view on students,, neither would the TALI program force any one educational technique on teachers.

Soon teachers became the prime force in Israeli society calling for TALI schools, Segal said.

Until recently, the Conservative institution where Segal serves as president was known in Hebrew simply as the "Beit Midrash," but it was decided to change the name to the Schechter Institute, after Solomon Schechter, for several reasons.

First, said Segal, "Beit Midrash" (House of Study) has become a generic name used by many institutions to describe their educational academies, so there was confusion over just which "Beit Midrash" was being referred to.

Schechter is remembered in the United States as the founder of the Jewish Theological Seminary -- which produces the rabbis and cantors for the Conservative movement. But in Israel, he is known as the man who brought back from Egypt numerous Hebrew documents and text fragments that had been kept for later burial at the Cairo Geneiza .

"It will be 100 years before they finish with these documents," Segal said. "They represented one of the great leaps forward in scientific Jewish knowledge. As an academician, Schechter has a tremendous reputation. The Israel Museum had a six-month exhibit recently on the Cairo Geneiza fragments and focusing on his works. So he is a well-known name. "

Besides that, Schechter was a committed Zionist, leading the Conservative movement in the United States to be wholeheartedly in favor of the establishment of the Jewish state -- a conclusion other Jewish religious movements came to belatedly.

Besides sponsoring the TALI schools, the Schechter Institute serves as a religious seminary as well as a graduate school for Jewish educators and communal workers. 

"The principal of the TALI high school was our first doctor," Segal said. "The second was an adviser for teachers at the kindergarten level. These are people who want Judaism in their field work."

Summing up the Schechter Institute's goals, Segal told HERITAGE "for 50 years Israel has tried to redeem its soil; we are trying to redeem its soul -- but only in a way the people want. We are not there (in Israel) to missionize, we are there to help. We are not there to enforce, we are there to educate. "

Segal said he has two fond wishes. "One is...when people say 'Jewish' in Israel, they will think of it as something that pulls them together and not something that pulls them apart," he said. "The second is that any Jew can go into someone else's Jewish institution and feel comfortable enough to stay there for a while."