In recent weeks, marking the International Day and Awareness Month for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a public campaign by the Welfare and Social Services Ministry has been launched, urging people "not to behave awkwardly" and to act naturally when encountering a person with a disability. The intention is important, but it raises a deeper question: can we demand naturalness and confidence in encounters with difference if people are not accustomed to such encounters? Can we expect adults to respond with ease to something most of them did not experience in childhood in a continuous, daily, and natural way?
Difference is not the problem; it becomes a problem when it is treated as such. Every person has an identity composed of many aspects and a combination of personal, social, and cultural identities. Disability is one component within a broad tapestry of identities, not an exclusive or defining characteristic. When encounters with difference are based on reciprocity and recognition of each person’s inherent value, they cease to be threatening and instead become an opportunity for connection, learning, and shared growth.
Children with, without disabilities in Israel
In Israel, there are certain formal and informal frameworks in which children with and without disabilities learn and grow together. In these settings, all children learn within the same framework, with different adaptations under one roof. Through daily experience, they learn that the world comprises diverse people with varied characteristics, and that difference is not an obstacle but an opportunity for growth and development. For them, shared living is not merely an ideology but a daily reality.
Alongside these frameworks, however, the prevailing reality in many Israeli schools remains far from this vision. Data shows that a significant proportion of children with disabilities do not study with their peers from their natural environment close to home. Approximately 40% of students entitled to special education services attend separate kindergartens, schools, and classrooms, and some travel long distances to educational settings via transportation services. This separation, which accompanies many of us into adulthood, leads to a lack of meaningful familiarity. Children and adolescents with and without disabilities in Israel still do not have enough opportunities to share experiences based on mutuality and benefit for all sides.
The result is that many children grow up without genuine, ongoing social interaction with children who have a range of needs. A chance encounter in a playground or on the street is no substitute for a relationship built day after day during recess, in games, in class, through conflict and reconciliation. Only in this way is the human capacity to respond naturally developed. When there is no familiarity, awkwardness increases not out of ill intent, but due to the absence of meaningful interaction.
Continuity is the key. Children learn values not through one-off messages, but through consistent daily experiences, with mediation where needed. The earlier exposure to a broad spectrum of human diversity, the greater the likelihood of forming natural, reciprocal relationships. It is important to emphasize that inclusive education does not end at age 18. Shared living must also take place in adulthood, in the military, national service, academia, community living, and the labor market.
Meaningful integration into employment frameworks is a central pillar of the process. Workplaces that integrate employees with disabilities as an integral and equal part of the organizational system turn inclusion from a declaration into a daily reality.
So how do we turn inclusion into practice? Through inclusive education from an early age, continued exposure in adult frameworks, and genuine investment in workplaces that know how to create spaces adapted for everyone. Alongside this, the state must continue to promote policies that ensure accessibility, remove barriers, provide incentives, and provide professional support—not merely to "integrate," but to create an inclusive environment for the entire population. An environment in which every person could contribute, be meaningful, and feel a sense of belonging.
Inclusion at all stages of life benefits us all. It strengthens communities, deepens mutual responsibility, and creates a broader, richer, and more authentic human space.
Therefore, the question is not how to get people “not to treat others differently” or “not to behave awkwardly.” The question is how to create a reality in which such a message is unnecessary, a reality in which daily life, from kindergarten to the workplace, shapes us into a society that sees every person as a whole of identities and as a natural, inseparable part of it.
Ultimately, only a society that enables children and adults to live and develop together, and that cultivates difference, reciprocity, and equal rights as fundamental assumptions, will raise people who do not need to learn how to "behave correctly." They will simply know how to live together.
The writer is dean of the Faculty of Education at Seminar Hakibbutzim College.