Yaacov Hecht

Yaacov Hecht was born in 1958 in Hadera

Hecht was born on January 11, 1958, in Givat Olga in Hadera. As a primary school pupil he had difficulty learning to read and write, and at 16 he left high school. From 1978 to 1980 he led the Bnei HaYa'ar scout troop in Hadera.

After completing his matriculation, he earned a bachelor's degree in education and geography at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He then studied for a master's degree in child clinical psychology at Bar-Ilan University.

In 1987 he founded the Democratic School of Hadera, the first school to call itself democratic. He helped open other democratic schools in Israel, and in 1993 he convened the first International Democratic Education Conference. In 1996 he founded the Institute for Democratic Education, which set up teacher training at Kibbutzim College and a program for principals with Tel Aviv University.

In 2010 he founded Education Cities, a social enterprise that works with municipalities on the idea of the whole city as one school. He has advised 6 Israeli education ministers on links between the state and alternative education. He is married with 4 children and lives in Hadera.