A number of fathers, representing large families, primarily chareidim, have petitioned the High Court of Justice against the Finance Ministry and its plan to drastically cut monthly child allowance payments.
They maintain the cut in monthly assistance, which will have a profound negative impact on large families, is unreasonable and not in line with the government’s declared objectives, which include economic stability, reducing poverty and reducing the economic gap that exists between sectors of society.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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6 Responses
הצלחה רבה!
Your sucsess will be the sucsess of hundreds of families and save us from sinking below the poverty line
While many of the cuts were motivated by anti-hareidi bigotry and the mistaken notion that welfare benefits mainly hareidim (similar to how much anti-welfare bias in the USA is based on the mistaken belief that welfare benefits blacks) – the reality is Israel is providing a welfare state with benefits well beyond the government’s ability to pay for them. The best way to get people out of poverty is to get them jobs, and high taxes and over regulation hurt job growth (and for many hareidim, being closed out of establishment jobs is the big issue).
akuperma, your capitalstic views are very agreeing. Whether we like the current government’s ideas of hareidim or not, their socialistic communist ideas are unflattering. Such as raising taxes on nearly every tax braquet, raising the gas tax, diverting spending to certain “pet projects”. Isreal’s government will see a “red” budget.
No. 2: How does a job get a kollel learner’s family out of poverty? The only way I can think of is if his wife takes the job and finds free child care.
If the Hareidim want more respect from the rest of world Jewry, they will have to explain in specific financial terms how kollel benefits anyone other than the learners, and how kollel can be sustained if all Jewish men learned in kollel.
#4- A kollel is a job. They get paid. They are as much employed as the people who hang out at places such as Brooklyn College or Columbia University (note that only undergraduates and few professional schools have net tuition – indeed in good schools in the humanities, all students are “supported” on a graduate level, and teachers are well paid). The bulk of money for an Israeli kollel comes from donations. If Hareidi baal ha-battim had better jobs, they would donate more (as it is, Hareidim are banned from most employment under Israeli law, and serious discriminated against – but that’s another issue — and the result is overseas communities pick up the tab).
The reality is most kollel people exchange inferior income for superior work conditions. This is common among frum Jews everywhere. We value having a frum workplace and a frum work schedule. In economic terms, this is related to the “backward pending supply curve of labor”.
No. 5: If kollel is a job, the employees will have to improve the product or otherwise boost sales, because one major customer – the Israeli government – is thinking very seriously of reducing its purchases. If overseas customers could sustain the kollels, we would not be hearing about an Israeli government “attack” on Hareidim.