Perhaps to the surprise of avreichim in the Bnei Torah party, they have unsolicited assistance from a cabinet official. Education Minister Rabbi Shai Piron has announced that if kollelim attempt to oust avreichim on the background on the municipal elections, he will cut funding to that same kollel.
Piron has already instructed the Yeshivos Unit of his ministry to respond harshly to any kollel that dismisses an avreich due to his political affiliation. He explains such a kollel will have to forfeit its ministry funding for he does not plan to tolerate such behavior.
“We will not permit askanim to turn a kollel in to their political home court and by targeting students regardless if we are dealing with a school or a kollel. The chareidi tzibur, as is the case with the general population, deserves a balanced professional education system and those who are unable to accept this reality will simply not receive funding” the minister explained.
A letter was sent to directors of kollelim around the country explaining they have received complaints regarding avreichim who were ousted due to their political affiliation. The letter explains such mosdos will have to pay the price in the form of losing state funding for such a policy is intolerable.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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16 Responses
Sounds reasonable.
As is evident by the gedolim’s constant guidance regarding who to vote for, choosing who to vote for is very much a part of daas Torah. “Rabbi” Piron has once again demonstrated, in policy, his disregard and disrespect to our Torah and it’s directives. He doesn’t want roshei yeshiva teaching their students Torah hashkafa when it encroaches on his parnassah.
Woopie Dooo!
Piron will take away the 62 agurot an hour that Avreichim get (that is our tax money anyways)…
“We will not permit askanim to turn a kollel in to their political home court and by targeting students regardless if we are dealing with a school or a kollel.”
What are you doing by making the prerequisite to get funding to push army service etc- isn’t that also attempting “to turn a kollel in to their political home court”???
Maybe it’s just another excuse to steal even more of the budget and give it to…
In other words, institutions that don’t support his party will have their funding cut. Sound “reasonable. Just like Tammany Hall. A true Democrat (note the “d” is capitalized). Richard Daley would be proud.
#2- A rosh yeshiva can teach his talmidim hashkafa to his heart’s content, but he can’t expel a talmid because the talmid voted for a different party than the rosh yeshiva – which is the talmid’s inalienable legal right – and then expect the state to continue funding the yeshiva.
#3- The Minister is threatening to cut the institution’s government funding. That is typically a considerable sum.
And in Israel army service is a non-sectarian civil duty, like paying taxes.
Soon it’s going to be, “Any kollel that does not include 4 hours per month of ‘zionism studies’ will be fined”.
Certainly, any kollel that tries to kick out someone who disrespects the godol hador (even to the point of actually physically attacking him) will have to answer to Shai Piron. Attacking the godol hador (with words or with fists) is apparently a state-sponsored right. This is totally “reasonable” in a state that actively persecutes allegiance to the Torah and to our chachamim.
It is clear that the previous posters have no clue what they are talking about, and what this article is even about. Piron is not really a player in this machlokes, and none of these people are supporting “his” party. This is a disagreement between giants (R’ Shmuel Auerbach, shlita and R’ Shteinman, shlita), and it would do everyone a lot of good to just follow whomever their own morah derech is and STOP gossiping!
Whether or not you agree with the decision this is a classic example of the golden rule – he who has the gold makes the rules. It’s not for nothing that Rebbe Yoel stressed so vehemently the need for the community to be entirely self sufficient – if people with interests other than you’re own have financial power over you they will always be able to manipulate you. Only if a community truly supports itself financially can it dictate its own hashkafa and cling to it 100%
akuperma- since when did he say that? He was talking about the fact that R’ Kanievsky wanted to throw out avreichim who voted for R’ Auerbach’s party instead of R’ Shteinman’s. Neither of them voted for R’ Piron’s party. His point is, legally, you can vote for whomever you want and a kollel cannot kick you out based on you political affiliation.
Akuperma
in your blind hatred of anything israeli, you have again distorted the entire essence of this article. No mention was made of any political party.
In case you haven’t heard, israel is a democracy.
Having a Rabbi tell you how to vote is like asking your automobile mechanic to perform brain surgery.
Mully: of course Piron has nothing to do with R Auerbach, shlita, or R Shteinman, shlita. But he certainly sees an opportunity to use the current machlokes (or anything else he can use) to punish and push down the Torah community in EY. He is of course no friend of the supporters of R’ Auerbach or of anyone else who lives a life based on Torah study and allegiance to gedolim. This is just one more justification among many for removing support from the Torah community.
Moose613: for a person who wants to live according to Daas Torah, consulting Daas Torah about how to vote (or how to do anything else) is like asking your brain surgeon to perform brain surgery. Who better to consult on anything? When you want to live according to what Hashem wants from you, you ask an expert in the instruction book Hashem gave us.
Jerusalem- come on. an institution is not allowed to kick someone out for not voting the way you want to vote. This is true in every democratic country! You may disagree with things R’ Piron does, as I do too, but this is not one of them. An institution cannot compel any individual voter to vote a certain way.
simcha: Any institution can decide who they want and don’t want. And the criteria may include political orientation. It is the institutions democratic right to decide who to accept or reject.
So a college has the right to expel all student who didn’t vote for Obama?
This actually has nothing to do with politics (although Shai Piron begs to differ, figuring he can get some mileage out of it to further his cause) and everything to do with a worldview of adhering to daas Torah versus a worldview of doing what you feel like doing. Kollel is not the same thing as college, for heaven’s sake! And what about yitdis’s point above about “making the prerequisite to get funding to push army service etc”? Why do you think it’s OK to try to force a kollel to push the army but not OK for a kollel to uphold its own spiritual standards?