Educational Ministry officials have unfrozen kollel stipends for 54,000 avreichim ahead of the yomim tovim. Earlier it was reported that the funds were halted as a result of a High Court petition which cited that with the abolition the Tal Law, the avreichim no longer enjoyed any legal status and therefore, national government funding was inappropriate if not illegal.
The release of funds by the ministry angered “Hiddush” leaders who accuse the ministry of trying to circumvent the realities that now exist as a result of the expiration of the Tal Law.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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3 Responses
What was the reason they gave for providing the funds, notwithstanding the expiration of the Tal law protections which provided these kollel yungerleit with “legal status”?
Yes, let them starve!
To #1, although the media (including YWN) portray the transfer of funds to the yungerleit as illegal due to the expiration of the Tal law – basically following and accepting the anti-religous reform movement “Hiddush” spokesman’s language, in reality it is just a technical problem. Any Ministry can transfer money to all sorts of people and institutions according to the criteria set up by the relevant Minister and Ministry. This is legal and necessary for the normal running of any country. In this case the criteria set up for the Kollelim was indeed formally part of the Tal law. There is therefore currently no legal criteria for transfering these sums. This is absolutely nothing to do with the “legal status” of the yungerleit. Until they are called up for army service, they are as legal as anyone else. The army has no plans to call up these yungerleit at the moment anyway, they are mainly concentrating on the 17 year olds who ought to begin their army service shortly. What the Ministry did, in answer to the application to the High Court, is to set up temporary criteria until the whole matter of the chareidim and the army is decided and then permanent criteria will be published. This is legal and accepted practice in all branches of government. The “hiddush” spokesman was left with nothing to say and just insulted the Minister of Education for “caving” in to chareidi pressure. It seems though that these anti-religous groups were successful with their PR attempts as all the media (again YWN included) are calling the yungerleit “illegal citizens”. This is shameful delegitimisation of the whole chareidi population and surprising if not worse that even YWN joins in this despicable game.