One day prior to the date of the regular monthly transfer of funds from the government to the directors of Israel’s yeshivos, the stipends had not yet been granted permission by the government’s finance committee, something which is causing many directors to worry that the monies won’t be transferred on time or at all.

The budget allocated for the yeshiva stipends – which had increased over the course of 2017 with the government’s permission to accommodate rising costs – has not yet reached the finance committee for ratification.

Some 50 million shekel have been waiting to get approved by the committee and since the beginning of the calendar year have not yet received this approval. Thus far, the branch of the Finance Ministry in charge of budget allocation has granted an exception to the Yeshivos in order to transfer the allocated budget according to its regular schedule, which is the first Thursday of every month.

This month however, the Finance Ministry has refused to issue this directive, something that will prevent the currently allocated budget from being transferred to the Yeshivot.

As part of the agreement to become full members of the coalition, the Chareidi parties got the government to agree to establish the budget for the Yeshivos at 1.224 billion NIS. This increase added some 52.5 million NIS per year for both 2017 and 2018 to the Chareidi yeshivos.

Head of the Finance Committee UTJ MK Moshe Gafni told Bechadrei Charedim that: “We are talking about money that was agreed upon during coalition talks. We are always keeping our finger on the pulse to make sure that all of the agreements made to the Chareidi world and the Yeshivos are being kept and that there will not be any mistakes. This is a regular occurrence that takes place often, to check and see if money is missing and fix any problems that arise.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)