The Finance Ministry is looking to cut spending and it appears one of the favored targets is funding for yeshivos. In his Knesset address on Wednesday, 27 Sivan 5773, MK (Yahadut Hatorah) Menachem Eliezer Moses address the cut in funding for post high school talmidim from abroad, those who come to learn in Eretz Yisrael. Moses tried to put things in a realistic perspective, explaining the program of funding these talmidim costs the state a mere 35 million NIS. He emphasized that unlike Birthright and other Jewish Agency programs which receive extravagant funding, the students do not receive funding for comparable programs. In addition, the funding is immeasurable when weighed against the sums generated as a result of the students spending their year or two in Eretz Yisrael. Moses explains the money spent during the talmidim’s stay in addition to the visits by their parents and families far outweighs any government cost.
Moses simply addressed the matter from strictly an economic perspective, explaining these talmidim bring foreign currency and significantly contribute to the national economy by studying here. He mentioned car rentals, hotel says, restaurants and much more, all associated with these students spending their year or two in Israel. He continues, citing that in more than a few cases, students and families decide to move to Israel. Moses also cited the enormous sums spent by these families for Yomim Tovim such as Sukkos and Pesach when they buy 4 minim and matzos respectively.
He warns that the drastic cuts to these yeshivos will result in some having to close and ultimately, the state will lose and not gain. He condemned the shortsightedness and hatred of Torah Jewry, which in this case will carry a costly price for the state and many businesses.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
1. Get real. The policy of the zionist government is to try to drive Torah out of Israeli life. Asking why the government would try to hurt yeshivos, is like asking Hitler why he is trying to hurt Jews. Saying the program will force yeshivos to close is an effective argument as complaining to Hitler that his policies will result in the death of many Jews – to our enemies, the decline of Torah is a feature, not a bug.
2. Of course yeshivos contribute to the economy. Most of the money comes from overseas as donations and money spent by foreign students. That’s why initially all the Lapid/Bennett group threatened were to cut off stipends to yeshiva students, but soon realized that would have no impact since the yeshivos don’t rely on government funding to that great an extent – and then turned to “penal” sanctions as the weapon of choice in the war against Torah.
Good focus on the reduction of finances to the state.
Even though it is doubtful that the numbers of Yeshiva boys or girls will stop coming because of these funding changes.
zionflag: 1) It’s not that much money – the big items messing up the economy are military spending and welfare; 2) threatening conscription will deter more than money; 3) the reason for the policy change is hatred of Torah (note that they haven’t cut off subsidies affecting those coming to zionist universities); 3) Lapid and company aren’t so bright, since they are mainly hurting pro-zionist institutions rather than the hareidi ones, since many of the hareidi ones don’t accept government subsidies.
#2 what do you know about running the finances of a yeshiva. obviously not much. why don’t you call your local yeshiva, girls school or shul and they’ll explain to you the problem with cutting funding.