Indictments were handed down on Monday in the Jerusalem District Court against 11 avreichim and prominent members of the kehila in the so-called “Masmidim case”, with some of the defendants being family members.
The indictment filed against the defendants alleges they embezzled over 48 million NIS from the Ministry of Education. Some of the defendants are also charged with additional crimes including money laundering, intimidating witnesses and interfering with a police investigation.
They are also alleged to have filed funding requests using straw NGOs as well as legitimate non-profit organizations along with other means to obtain state funding by fraudulent means. They allegedly supplied the Education Ministry with false reports, inflating the student body to obtain additional funds for their mosdos, using identification numbers of avreichim from the Eida Chareidis tzibur who do not accept state funding.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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7 Responses
seems they are accused of taking money to support people learning, but not following the government’s procedures — Is there evidence of using the money for things such as mansions, expensive international flights, fancy cars, etc. — The criminal justice system in in Israel is well known for being highly politicized and highly prejudiced against Yidden (if they were accused of living high they would be sure to say so, most likely the biggest offense was excessive frumkeit, which the prosecutors see as a crime even if they can’t prosecute it as such).
We dont have all the facts in regard to these accusations, but in general, “Torah iz de besta schoirah” when maximum effort is expended and Torah is taught and learned hand in hand with concrete planning to avoid the need and desire for dishonesty.
Whew…that is a big NO NO!!!
Always follow the money trail..
how sad.
The issue is not how they spent ill gotten gains but whether they committed fraud. You are trying to put lipstick on a pig (as you did in the other fraud case today).
Money from the ministry of “education” is hefker. If the media rechilus is accurate and these men really took it, they prevented it from being used for treif purposes.
This is for sure fraud and now there is going to be a big Chilul Hashem
(Even if there may be s Rav who gave them a Heter to do this – which I doubt – look what will happen now!!!)