Before the first-grade class began in the Luria school in Jerusalem, there seemed little difference between the behavior of one six-year-old and another. The dark-skinned "Oriental" children, whose parents come from North Africa and the Middle East, were almost as well dressed and just as well scrubbed as the Europeans. In the scramble for seats, they showed the same giggling eagerness. But then the teacher began the lesson—and the class was promptly split in two.
The Oriental children had no idea what the Hebrew words for exercise book, pencil, eraser or ruler are. When the teacher asked, "What kind of grown-up uses...
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