6 Responses

1. It says in sefarim that Hashem listens to the prayers and cries of the poor and afflicted, that’s tefillah le’ani, a powerful prayer. Lapid Harashah is waiting for the curses of the poor and downtrodden.

   Obviously Lapid Harashah is only out to hurt charedim as he knows that chilonim have only 2-3 children with a dog. Maybe charedim should cut down from taxes and use it for their own expenses.

2. 1. The Israeli welfare state is “richer” than the country can afford. They will eventually get into the same problem as Greece and Spain.

   2. The cuts are partially motivated by a misinformed bigotted belief that hareidim are the primary recipient of the welfare benefits (similar to the US where many opponents of welfare are motivated by the erroneous belief that most welfare recipients are African Americans).

   3. Everyone knows that the first child is the most expensive, and that subsequent children of the same gender as an older sibling are quite inexpensive. While economics supports the new policy, we all know it is motivated by the bigotted (but correct) belief that large families in Israel tend to be hareidi (rather than Arab or hiloni).

   4. The US cuts the equivalent (a $1000/year tax credit, somewhat more than Israel’s) at about $100K per year. The Israeli proposal is to cut it out at $250K per year. The child allowance is basically government tsadakkah, and there is no reason to give tsadakkah to people who aren’t poor. Also this cut is NOT motivated by bigotry, since the hilonim believe that hareidim have no income to begin with.

3. what has happened in israel is what happened in other european countries as well as in US… people count on tzedaka and gvmt handouts rather than work for their money… Lapid is NOT being anti chariedi he is trying to balance a checkbook and make it a fair system across the board… he didnt say after 3 kids hes not giving further assistance – he is giving X Sheq per kid if you have 1 or 100. he is being reasonable – people need to go out and work and not count on othes

4. in response to “Obviously Lapid Harashah is only out to hurt charedim” — it isn’t so obvious. While Lapid is a bigot, and feels that cutting child allowance is a way to hurt hareidim (just as many Americans who are bigotted feel that cutting welfare is a way to hurt blacks) — he also is a conservative in economic matters (cf. American Republicans, and NOT the “compassionate conservative” types) and Israel’s welfare spending is at an unsustainable level.

   It would greatly help Israel’s economy if they could address economic problems without being confounded by the serious religious and ethnic prejudices of most of the ruling class (and it isn’t just us they hate, though we are in their targets this month).

5. For a change, I find myself in agreement with Akuperma (no. 2) who correctly notes that the cost of raising children declines after the first or second child and thus there is logic in capping the child support payments after 2 or 3 children. This would make sense both from the practical perspective of limited budget resources and the political equity and fairness perspective of not providing subsidies to large chareidi families at the expense of the majority of Isrealis with much smaller families.

6. Why would anyone in the right state of mind want to take money from those who wish to uproot judaism, regardless of reason or cause of ‘allowance’?