The Supreme Court earlier in the week instructed the state to respond within 45 days towards justifying continued yeshiva funding following the disqualification of the Tal Law.
R’ Meir Porush released a statement in response to the High Court, saying “Next week we can show the court that it is waging a war against hundreds of thousands of citizens who will vote with one voice. They remain determined in their opposition to efforts to destroy limud Torah by drafting talmidim into the military.”
Porush continued by issuing a plea to everyone to get out and vote Gimmel to guarantee strong Knesset representation of the frum community in the 19th Knesset.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
simply not true they are still funding yeshiva just those of age will be required to do some service for the country.
people can learn all they want
A strong argument can be made that conscription is counter-productive in that it will result in unwilling and malcontented soldiers, and in hurting Israel internationally.
Not handing over money to yeshivos is a different matter. Governments are under no obligation to fund academic institutions, and most Israelis have to go to the army before the government gives them money. And while it seems cruel to say so, giving money to adult yeshiva students doesn’t really increase the amount of people learning to that great an extent, since the recipients, being Bnei Torah, would be learning anyways. It might make more sense for the Hareidi community to limit demands to parity between yeshiva students and college students, i.e., if someone is studying “Bible” or “Talmud” in a university, their support would be no more than what yeshiva students get (colleges being much better funded than yeshivos), rather than demanding a special “perq” which is (correctly) understood as not representing a government belief in learning Torah but as a bribe to get the hareidi parties to let the ruling party have a free hand in economic and security matters.
“to let the ruling party have a free hand in economic and security matters”. The time has come for UTJ to delve into economic and security matters and incorporate the nation’s needs into its agenda.
Funding the yeshivos isn’t “handing over money.” It’s returning a little of what they stole for years by under supporting avreichim and spending Jews’ money on treif culture etc.