8:30AM EST: Heavily armed police forces have raided numerous Kollelim in Eretz Yisroel Sunday morning, and arrests have been made.
Although exact details are still unfolding, and have not been fully confirmed, YWN Israel has gathered the following information.
Kollelim in Eretz Yisroel receive money for every Yungerman enrolled in Kollel. Apparently, many of them tell the government that they have many more members in their Kollel then they really do. An investigation has been ongoing for quite some time, and police were given orders on Sunday to make the arrests for what seems to be “large scale fraud”. They either had people not really enrolled in their Kollel, sign the papers, or had individuals posses numerous fake ID cards, and signed up repeatedly.
Police forces have so far raided seven Kollelim belonging to the “Masmidim” Mosdos in Yerushalayim, Beitar, Modiin Illit, and Beit Shemesh. The Kollelim have been sealed shut, and police have arrested six people as of this posting.
Additionally, a high-ranking official at the Ministry of Education has been arrested in connection to the fraud.
More police raids and arrests are expected.
Some sources tell YWN Israel that police have found a machine which manufactures fake ID’s, but this has yet to be confirmed.
Further detiails will be posted as they become available to YWN Israel.
Update From Jerusalem Post: Six people were arrested and four were held for questioning Sunday after central unit investigators in Jerusalem, in cooperation with the fraud unit, raided three offices of Orthodox-run educational non-profit organizations that are suspected of deceiving the government of ten of millions of shekels in recent years.
Police suspect that the organizations’ representatives received millions of shekels from the Education Ministry for students who they falsely claimed studied at yeshivas.
(Chaim Shapiro – YWN Israel)
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32 Responses
What a chilul hashem!
I request of the editorial staff at YWN to very carefully monitor the comments and not allow the almost certain to be lashon hara and motzie shem rah that this story can lead to. Dumping on torah institutions in a public forum is a chillul Hashem and does not add anything to such a charge.
Kol Torah Sh’ein Eamha Derech Eretz Soifah Luvoy Leadei Batalah. see commentary to chazal, that he will ultimately come to stealing to pay his way.
& the kollel students are demanding special stipends from the government. wonderful
Iam not condoning anything illegal but I guess the govt has nothing better to do unless CH’V someone is going to blow up a bus with a gemora and a Rashba.
As a “real-brisker” you should add, how right the Brisker Rov zatza’l was, not to allow to take assistance from the medinah.
We should look at it this way. When you have so many members of the yeshiva and kollel in the coffee room or coming late to davening and shiurim this is the punishment bound to happen. We have to do our part, and treat davening and learning much more seriously in my belief.
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sane – Yes you are right, but I will not publicize my personal minhagim for the public.
Re- chillul hashem – aren’t we obligated to avoid even the appearance of wrongdoing? I’d like to think that all the police found was caused by careless and sloppy paperwork. In a time that the chiloni public, that is supporting the yeshivas (and not entirely willingly) is practically up in arms about the cost, we must be extra vigilant about doing everything properly.
Considering the current political battle regarding kollel stipends, these are obviously politically motivated allegations, and they are only allegations.
The reality is that these are extremely difficult times for those who try dedicating their lives to pure Torah learning and teaching, especially in Eretz Yisroel.
This should serve as an alarm to alert of their desperate situation for funds, and those amongst us that are able to, should double our efforts to provide them with the financial assistance to continue going strong. Poskim in our times have said that to attain great levels in Torah today one may have to and may dedicate himself to full time Torah study and rely on others for support.
Perhaps it’s time to sit down and rethink the system, both in US and Israel, where everyone who wants to, sits and learns, and the government pays. No one can force the Chilonim/secular people to tolerate this. Even though learning is great, it has to be done at private expense. If the wealthy among us, and BH there are many, were willing to give up some of their very lavish expenditures, it could be done and eliminate the public resentment.
While we point to secular University students getting govt assistance, in those cases more often than not, it leads to their self sufficiency. In Chareidi cases, it most often does not. Able minded and bodied people should be independent or supported privately, Yissochor-Zevulun style.
The world should see how WE are willing to sacrifice for Torah, not John Doe, or Chanan Chiloni.
I rest my case.
If true, this is certain to raise the learning level in the prisons, and still no comfort to the chiloni objectors, also at public expense.
The naiveté displayed by the posters is absolutely beguiling. Anyone intimately affilaited with heimishe and/or yeshivish insitutions knows full well that a vast majority of them play ‘shtick’. Don’t get me wrong there are definitely insitutions that don’t and would never do anything ‘shitcky’. However to treat this as allegation and politcal manuvering is perposterous. For some reason institutions of higher learning feel its absolutely mutar to defraud the goverment. Its pretty sad….
FRAUD is the number ONE offense in the State of Israel.
MK, business men, Organizations and Yeshivos. There is a thought process within our community about rules/regulation whether immigration, tax, traffic, building — etc. There is a feeling that we are still living in a ghetto under a oppressed regime and we do our own thing – draining monies that WE FEEL are ours.
To #6 that says the Brisker Rav was right. If you could please explain yourself. The Gedolim that said you may and do accept Govt assistance never said it is allowed to steal. I am not sure what the Brisker Rav has to do with it.
I FEEL BAD TO SAY THIS BUT ITS ABOUT TIME THAT WE CHANGE OUR LIFESTYLE AND START GIVING A NORMAL COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR ALL OUR CHILDREN ,AND THE KOLEL OPTION SHOULD BE LEFT FOR THE SELECT FEW THAT ARE MADE FOR IT, THIS SYSTEM IS NOT WORKING FOR MOST NORMAL PEOPLE, I AM FROM LAKEWOOD ,A WORKING PROFESSIONAL
WITH A COLLEGE DEGREE AND LEARN A FEW HOURS A DAY I LOVE TO LEARN ,I STARTED WORKING AFTER 5 YEARS IN KOLEL IT WAS 10 TIMES HARDER THEN GOING WHEN UR 18.
I SPEAK TO ALLOT OF WORKING PEOPLE IN LAKEWOOD THEY TELL ME THAT THEY THINK THIS SYSTEM FAILED THEM AND THEY ARE VERY UPSET THEY ARE AFRAID TO SAY SOMETHING THEY DODNT WANT TO BE LABELED ANTI KOLEL HOW COULD WE ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO HAVE ALLOT OF CHILDREN AND YET PREVENT THEM FROM MAKING A COMFORTABLE LIVING.
16 bklynmom,
Anytime people live under socialist conditions, there is fraud. The more socialism, the more fraud because otherwise there is no way to get ahead unless you are from the elitist govt.
36 i believe that his precise quote was “do not STEAL money from the medina”
If they want to investigate something; investigate all the bribes that are required to build a building in Eretz Yisrael. It takes at least 2 years to get permits and of course much bribes. They are searching 3 kollels but look at thousand the last prime minister took to build near
Malcha mall
#11, which so called poskim said such a thing that distorts what torah is all about?
18, WHY ARE YOU SHOUTING AT US?????? DO YOU KNOW HOW TO TYPE WITHOUT SHOUTING???? MOST PEOPLE WHO SHOUT ALL THE TIME ARE TOTALLY INCORRECT, which I see you are. In fact, to me it sounds like you are jealous about your lack of hasmoda.
mark levin I am not shouting at all i am saying the truth
dodnt stard with hasmadah u r living in a dream world if you disagree with me, you obviously dodnt know whats going on . i have a close friend that works at job placement in a very prominent organization in Lakewood he told me he has every day people in their 30 looking for a job after 10 years in kolel without any skills he has nothing to tell them so wake up and smell the coffee mark
“Dumping on torah institutions in a public forum is a chillul Hashem ”
Any institution that engages in theft or fraud is not a torah institution. I hope that these allegations prove unfounded, but if they are proven, they people responsible should not be permitted to run any of our institutions.
israellakewood (#18), so sad and so true.
This causes many other serious problems too numerous to mention.
@israellakewood: if even with your college education, you didn’t even teach you the basics of English spelling, how are you the salesperson to tell me to got to college?
yitzyy (#27), spelling is picked up and honed in elementary and high school (english depts in most of our Yeshivas arent that strong for boys), college doesnt offer spelling. There are presidents, doctors, scientists, inventors and scholars, etc. who CANT spell! More often than not, they CAN support their families.
Yitzyy, let us be serious and not pick on side points. Derech klal, you need education and skills to make a normal living in our times.
BS”D
Keep in mind that charedim pay a very fair share of taxes. Even one anonymous but successful real estate investor, restaurant or store owner, or diamond dealer, to say nothing of a Halperin, Lebovitz or Leviev, pays far more in taxes than even an above average salaried engineer or manager in high-tech (and sometimes it is a Halperin, Lebovitz or Leviev, or even a haredi investor from abroad, who really owns and controls the firm that employs that salaried engineer).
However, if what I read is correct, the implicated yeshivos are indeed among the ones that are very isolated from society. They are not the ones whose talmidim enter society at some point and often contribute far more than their share to social welfare organizations (as well as opening small and not so small businesses). They have no right to public funds (assuming that this is not a politically motivated witchhunt meant to detract from a legitimate demand for funding for the haredi sector).
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Charliehall, you indeed do make a bigger chilul Hashem here and on other forums than even this news causes.
That is because you take bad news and add your own misguided LH and MSR commentary to it. In fact you are one of the reasons I try to keep my participation in forums to a sub-minimum – I do not want to give you fodder for misguided response. It is time for you to stop straddling the fence and to realize that your left wing secularist klipa is something you have to throw away once you commit to a life of Torah.
@OfCourse, and mdd. You are both correct. I just find it laughable, that I never went to college, and I’m being lectured to, (as part of the general yeshiva public) by someone who can’t write in English.
It is irrelevant to the discussion at hand, though. I agree.
We cannot comment on this specific case because no one knows the details.
However, it is naive to believe that certain Yeshivos and Kollelim exaggerate how many Talmidim they have in order to increase the government payments.
There is a sentiment amongst some that we can take advantage of the Chilonim.
This must stop.
Further, there are many young men who are abusing the priviledge of sitting in Kollel, they learn a couple of hours a day and doing other things during the rest of the day.I have seen this myself at close range over many years.
This must stop.
Let those who dont want to sit and learn the whole day and much of the night, find employment to support their family.
There is nothing wrong with working
Let the true Yissochor Zevulon relationship reappear.
These decision should obviously matter in consulation with their wives are experienced Rabbonim.
No more Chilul HaShem