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The article presents a comparative analysis of curricula in an education system in Israel. Two dilemmas faced by the educators particularly in new states which lack a tradition of self-government to instil national values are the danger of an exaggerated nationalism and the danger of "disengagement." In a country where a majority living side by side with a minority determines the social and political set-up, these problem assume an added dimension. To critically evaluate the curricula, comparative method has been used. In the first instance the curriculum designed for the Arab minority has been compared with that drawn up by the same authority for the Jewish majority, and then proceed to compare it with a curriculum drawn up by an Arab government (Jordan) for Arab pupils. Jordanian curriculum served as an additional yardstick enabling the researchers to distinguish between dissimilarities which derive from the different objectives of the planners for the children of the majority and the minority groups, and those which stem from differences between Jewish and Arab culture.

This article focuses on the relationship developed between Zionism and Israel and the Arab peoples. The most obvious, and politically the most consequential, peculiarity of Zionist nationalism is that it achieved sovereignty for a people in a land which it had not effectively occupied since ancient times. Historically perhaps, it is just as important a peculiarity that Zionist nationalism, quite unlike other European nationalist ideologies, is not only deeply involved with religious traditions but is in substance little more than a modern political transformation of a traditional religious idea. When Zionism emerged as a modern political movement late in the nineteenth century, it produced hardly any ideas of strategy or tactics, hardly any definitions of ends and means which were not paralleled in the doctrines of its Jewish and Christian proto-Zionist precursors. The most obvious, and politically the most consequential, peculiarity of Zionist nationalism is, as we have noted, that it achieved sovereignty for a people in a land which it had not effectively occupied since ancient times.

The article focuses on communal movements in the U.S. and Israel. A utopian communal group may thus be defined as a voluntary and egalitarian community which is sustained by the co-operative efforts of its members devoted to developing the communal resources and which utilizes these resources to provide essential goods and services for its members as well as all other additional goods and services that are compatible with the belief in the intrinsic value of a simple way of life. The kibbutz differs from nearly all other utopian communal movements in that it was, and is, inextricably linked to a national movement, its members having provided much of the ideological stimulation and the active leadership for the Zionist movement based on the desire to build a national home for the Jews in Palestine. Thus, in analyzing the kibbutz movement, it is necessary to realize that it is sustained by three interlocking, generally consistent, but occasionally conflicting, motivations, namely, socialist, nationalist and pragmatic. Many of the ambiguities and contradictions of kibbutz life arise from its involvement in the surrounding society and from its efforts to reconcile socialist, national and pragmatic considerations.