Amendment: Today is the First Day of School

Today is officially the first day of school in Israel. While some schools began on Friday (and even earlier), today all of the little kiddies are back in class. In today’s edition of Ynet, probably the most widely read internet news sources in Israel, there was an article about Moshe Katzav, Israel’s president, accompanying his grandson to first grade.

For those of you who don’t know, Katzav has recently been accused to have sexually harassed a former employee. I’m not sure how much of this made international news (as it started the same time rockets were falling on Israel), but this has become a hot topic around here. I can’t help but think of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and all of the hype and commentary surrounding it. I recall a conversation I had once at Emory in an International Politics class. We were talking about world leaders and how public or private their personal lives should be and if people really care what they do in the privacy of their own homes. Many people argued that no one cares as much as America about what their leaders do. This article proves differently.

One Minster of the Knesset, Shelly Yacimovich, says that Katzav should not be visiting schools in light of the recent allegations. While I think that is a little extreme, I do not think she is alone in her views. For a country that is still discussing whether or not she “won” the latest war in Lebanon, her citizens still have time (and enery)to debate the moral quality of their leaders.