Students from Tichonet High School in Tel Aviv claimed that principal Ram Cohen had refused to play Israel's national anthem "Hatikva" at a memorial ceremony for late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. "It did not occur to me that we should end a ceremony by singing the national anthem," Cohen said in response. The students who complained about the oversight initially thought that it was done by mistake, but later discovered that it was the school management intentional decision to skip playing the anthem. Following the incident, Yisrael Beytenu MK Oded Forer sent a letter to Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, urging them to investigate the issue. "It is unacceptable that the political views of a principal or a staff member at an institution funded by the Education Ministry be allowed to seep through into the minds of impressionable young people," Forer's letter read. "Unfortunately, this is not the first time that this school principal [Cohen] voiced remarks that are unbecoming to an educator. The school's decision is outrageous, disturbing and reflects the slippery slope of our country's detachment from its symbols and ethics," the letter further read. Cohen said in response: "We didn't think that a ceremony should end with the national anthem, just as we don't conclude the school year's opening ceremony with it. At no stage did the students request to sing the anthem or were they denied." "However, if I had had to consider beforehand including the anthem in the ceremony, I'm not at all certain that I would have, as the anthem excludes the high school's Arab teachers in a ceremony that aims to promote tolerance and acceptance of the other," Cohen further said.
