Bennett: speech given by Israel Prize winner who lost 2 sons in combat about choosing life to be taught in Israeli schools.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett on Friday instructed Education Ministry Director-General Shmuel Abuav to teach the speech given by Israel Prize laureate Miriam Peretz at the Israel Prize awards ceremony last night over the following week

Peretz, who lost two sons in combat, spoke about how she had transformed her grief into a "new melody" and how building a nation was "more than just pain and tears."

In 1998, Peretz's oldest son, Uriel, was killed while serving in Lebanon. 12 years later in 2010, her other son, Eliraz, was killed on the Gaza border. Both served in the elite Sayeret Golani unit.

Peretz, who won the Israel Prize for her work with youth education, spoke on behalf of all the Israel Prize laureates Thursday night.

“I am proud to be part of a group that chose to engage in education, out of the belief that this is the way to breach the walls of ignorance and inadequacy, and out of the understanding that education opens opportunities for self-fulfillment, as it had for me.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I stand humbly before my colleagues, honorable people who created, wrote, studies and invented, people of vision, creation and faith. I am not worthy, I don’t have a creation. I can’t point to a revelation I made or a formula I cracked.”

“I have a heart that was broken three times with terrible announcements: The loss of my eldest son Uriel in battle in Lebanon, the death of my partner Eliezer due to a broken heart, and the loss of my second son in battle in Gaza,” she recalled.

“With that heart I came to my nation and in simple words, in the language of a broken heart, I spoke of this land and its legacy, of choosing goodness, of happiness, of devotion to life, of responsibility, of social involvement, and out of that heart which beats with faith in this country and this nation, out of the great depth of pain flowed springs of love.

“When the heart is full of faith, it can withstand great challenges. I turned my grief into a new melody."

The Education Ministry's professional teams will formulate lesson plans based on the speech that will be taught in schools throughout the country.

"Miriam Peretz, the mother of the sons, the mother of all of us, united and raised in her speech last night a whole nation when she succeeded in portraying the yearning of Israeli society as a whole for unity and partnership. Miriam's story, and in essence her choice to continue to live and to revive generations of students by the power of her personality, are an example and an example to all of us," said Bennett.

"Over the next week, Israeli students will learn about the speech, the values ​​it expresses and the significant messages that Miriam brought to the State of Israel. We were all privileged to hear the words of the living G-d last night, and now we will make sure that these will seep into the next generation as well."