From the Jerusalem Post (January 6)

Headgear is fraught with symbolism, and even an uncovered pate has meaning. Hats are more than fashion statements. They can identify our sex, occupation, rank, favorite sports team, political allegiance, nationality, or religious affiliation. It wasn't for nothing that Shas (Orodox polital party) suggested last week that wearing a kippa should be obligatory on memorial days for fallen soldiers and Holocaust martyrs. The 10 MKs (members of the Knesset) who naughtily sponsored the provocative bill knew they hadn't a prayer of actually passing it. They were out to make a statement, because that's what the kippa is.

And because that's what all manner of headdress are, I so respect Basmat Tzabari. I have never met her and I know nothing about the 22-year-old except that she is an Eilat hotel waitress who vehemently refused to don Santa Claus's fur-trimmed hat as her bosses demanded she do on Christmas Eve. Her attitude cost Basmat her job, but she has no regrets. She knows it's all about symbols. In her age-group and in our milieu, Basmat is rare. Her convictions probably even earned her the stinging derision of her peers. In all likelihood they don't see what the fuss is about.

Dozens of my daughter's peers showed up in school on December 24 sporting the very sort of hat which lost Basmat her job. It was the trendy thing to do. One boy came attired in Santa's entire red suit and handed out candies. The school administration had no problem with any of this.

Quite the contrary. My daughter's 10th-grade history teacher marched into class that day with festive Yuletide salutations, recommended that the kids attend midnight mass in Jerusalem, and proceeded to educate his charges about the life and times of Jesus. He betrayed no hint of the New Historians' fashionable skepticism or politically correct iconoclasm, and made no mention of what was done to the Jews in the name of Jesus over the centuries.

But before Hanukka the same teacher announced to his captive audience that the story of the Maccabees is false, and that anyhow they were no freedom fighters but extreme haredim who attacked representatives of enlightenment and progress. My daughter protested against his attempts to force our definitions on the past and noted that there was no secular democracy, tolerance, or humanist pluralism in those days. She was promptly thrown out of class. Her incurable political incorrectness frequently gets her into trouble. It must be in her genes.

In a recent civics class she objected to another teacher's analogy between Israeli treatment of Arabs and the way the Germans treated Jews between 1933 and 1939. My 15-year-old argued that we don't behave like Nazis, while the Jews in Germany didn't blow up buses, hurl fire bombs, stone civilian cars, stab passersby or plant explosives in marketplaces. The Jews, she stressed, were German patriots who fought for Germany, regarded themselves as Germans of the Mosaic persuasion, and were more loyal to Germany than many of their Aryan neighbors. Again she was ejected from class.

She got into an equally nasty scrape in civics during a discussion on the merits of democracy versus the theocracy her teacher insisted the "dossim" seek to impose. "Dossim" was the term put on the blackboard as one of the ideological alternatives. My daughter objected to the offensive d-word and to the notion that Israel is really threatened by theocracy. That earned her the reputation of an extremist and a dossim-lover.

Nonetheless, her fellow students were surprised that she disapproved of their cheery "Heppy Krreesmees" greetings. Her classmates - in an average Israeli secular secondary school in an average Israeli community - saw nothing unsavory in exchanging Krreesmees cards, notes and gushy wishes. My daughter's reminders about the persecution of Jews fell on deaf ears.

Imbued with the spirit of the season, her best friend countered that the Inquisition happened long ago and the pope has already apologized for it. It's sadly symptomatic that pupils in the Jewish state's schools have little awareness that the Inquisition wasn't an isolated deplorable episode.

They lack historical perspective and exposure to the annals of their own people. Their journey through Jewish history is sporadic, in spurts and jerks which defy logic.

From the Renaissance they skip backwards to the Second Temple period and from there directly to the 19th century. The chronological loose ends are never tied, and the gaps are not filled. Jewish history makes uninspiring and disconnected guest appearances on the universal stage.

What will keep these youngsters in the Jewish state, or what it will look like when they take over, is not something I delight to dwell on.

Somehow, though, I suspect that Education Minister Yossi Sarid is delighted, and that for his Shas antagonists (if they dwell at all on any of this), clawing for clout takes precedence over the rising generation's cultural and national identity. Yet Israeli children's lack of pride in their heritage, or empathy for the Jews' history and lot, is no less alarming than their cousins' assimilation in America and Europe.

Therefore - just as younger Sabras stand poised to trim Hanukka bushes with de rigueur tinsel and flickering lights - it was so heart-warming to learn about Basmat. She probably didn't know that the soft red cap she was required to wear had nothing to do with the original fourth-century St. Nicholas, and that it was designed a little over a century ago by American political cartoonist Thomas Nast (the one who popularized the Democratic donkey and originated the Republican elephant) for the fat, jolly, white-bearded character he envisaged.

The hat has no intrinsic religious significance. But Basmat intuitively identified it as the symbol it is. "I am Jewish and it's not my hat," she explained. Some may denounce her as narrow-minded. But I wish there were many more like her.