In line with the policies of Education Minister Rabbi Shai Piron, his director responsible for Chinuch Atzmai Schools, Meir Shimoni, is responsible to make certain all schools affiliated with the chareidi network are including core subjects in the curriculum in the upcoming school year. The new policies of the ministry will compel the schools to include math, science, English and other subjects in their curriculum.
Schools currently in the system today that are unwilling to comply with the new directive will be compelled to leave, as they will not be accepted by the ministry and they will no longer be eligible for the current level of funding. Officials in the Chinuch Atzmai system explain this will have disastrous results for students will drop from the current 75% funding to a mere 35%. Chinuch Atzmai CEO Rabbi Avraham Lazerson released the facts, explaining he is distressed over the new reality which will impact thousands of talmidim.
In an interview with the weekly BaKehilla, Rav Lazerson explains this is a continuation of the government’s blatant and unwanted interference in the chareidi education system nationwide.
Chinuch Atzmai schools are referred to as “recognized/unofficial” schools that receive state funding. When the individual schools submit their paperwork to renew their status and entitlement to funding, if they are not 100% in compliance with the new directive, they will not be accepted and lose most of their funding. The permits of all Chinuch Atzmai schools expired and every school will have to apply for eligibility once again, and those failing to comply with the new curriculum will be without the majority of the schools’ funding.
Shimoni explains he is simply enforcing a May 2013 cabinet decision. BaKehilla adds there is no such cabinet decision. There is however a decision by the current administration that state funding for schools will be commensurate with compliance with the state mandated curriculum.
Rabbi Shmuel Goldberg, who runs the Lev Simcha Talmid Torah in Ashdod, explains the current situation is “a tragedy”. He explains his talmid torah has 3,000 talmidim, the largest in Israel, and the loss of funding will have catastrophic results. The talmid torah employees over 100 staff members, questioning how he will find the lost millions in funding to keep the school running.
Rabbi Lazerson stressed that Gedolei Yisrael Shlita have insisted that Chinuch Atzmai remains independent of the state curriculum at any and all cost. He points out that in the past, even the most anti-religious education ministers never attempted to change the system’s curriculum, emphasizing the gezeiros of today are unprecedented.
Many if not most Chinuch Atzmai schools will not be impacted since the girls schools comply with the curriculum but some thirty schools will have to decide how they will act prior to the new school year getting underway. Rabbi Lazerson adds that for him it is clear, and schools clinging to the instructions of Gedolei Yisrael Shlita will not have an option. They will have to refuse to comply with the ministry directive and bear the consequences. He adds that it is likely that hundreds of teachers will have to be dismissed from the system.
In the large chassidic courts there is no question, for they will not even consider complying with the ministry’s directive. They will have to find the funding but they will never compromise and permit state intervention in the chinuch of their children.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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13 Responses
You can be very frum
And be educated in math and English too
Great news that the curriculum will be updated to include English, Math & some civics. My relatives are thankful!
If you want to be part of the zionist state, and get the rich financial rewards that go with it, you have to be willing to compromise on many halachic matters. If you want to stay true to Torah, you have to be hareidi and refuse zionist money, and expect serious persecution from the zionists.
And the matter is complicated since the zionists are doomed to a perpetual war with the Arabs, a war that began when the zionists ignored the hareidi advice and changed the yishuv from a community of Jews living in Eretz Yisrael to do mitsvos, to one dedicated to establish a western economy and to subjugating anyone who didn’t want to go the secular western route (that is to say the Hareidim and the Arabs).
The premise of chinuch atzmai is that they are “independent.” The premise for their fundraising is that they don’t get govt funding since they don’t comply with govt mandates. Don’t want to comply with the rules? Don’t expect the money’ !
Actually one of the major points of agreement between the Chareidim and the Zionists at the State’s founding was that they would the Chareidi chinuch would completly independent.
Now that the Zionist government has completed violating that part of the “Status Qou” agreement I wonder if they are going to also stop collecting the considerable amount of taxes they collect from the chareidi family’s.
How about start by cutting the 17% VAT tax to about 7% like in NY & NJ?
Just like Jews would not take money from Christians because of its spiritual damage, the same applies to taking money from Zionists who all well aware that their money is intended to poison Jewish minds, especially young pure holy neshamos.
לא מדובשך ולא מעוקצך
The halachah is that even a Sefer Torah written by an apikoress has to be burned.
To #1: Education is one thing, but if it comes from these chilonim who are out to secularize religious Jews as they’re constantly trying and did in the past with Yaldey Teheran and others with their barbaric anti-democratic methods whom they “needed” to “enlighten those dark-aged Jews”, and as they did from the beginning of Zionism, no way.
The Zionists are the followers of the cursed Haskalah Movement who made a spiritual Holocaust in Klal Yisrael. From them you have to keep away like from poisonous snakes.
The Zionists don’t mean it for the benefit of religious Jews. They want to “enlighten” them to become like the “enlightened” Zionists who as we see have no morals nor values. For yeshivos there’s no money, but to shlep bachurim and men from yeshivos and secularize them in the military there’s abundance of funds. You have to be blind not to see their true intentions.
Let the chilonim first take care of their own crime infested problems among their children with their “wonderful” education system – not to teach them English but to teach them morals and values.
For the Zionists it’s appropriate to say the Tefillah that Yaakov Avinu asked Hashem:
הצילני נא מיד אחי מיד עשיו
“save me from MY BROTHER from Esav”
I do not understand the big dilemma. If you do not agree with the educational requirements of the State, don’t take their money.It sounds like the hareidi world wants to have their cake and eat it too. The last paragraph of the article is very misleading. Chabad, which is one of the larger Chassidic groups were the first to comply with the Ministry of Education is getting plenty of governmental help. (Maybe the author doesn’t consider Chabad a Chassidic Court)
Over the years, Chinuch Atzmai has been a little deceitful in their collection in the US. It was my understanding that I was giving for an “Independent” school systen, not one that was reliant on the government for 75% of its budget.
There cannot be any reason whatsoever that a core curriculum should not be taught in all schools and there is no Halachic reason not to teach, what is commonly called “limmudei chol” but is definately not “chol”. How is one, for example, to understand the various gemorahs which discuss mathematical concepts if you do not know maths? The result of not learning these core subjects is that we find people who cannot speak or write gramatically correct Yiddish, Ivrit or English, know nothing about the world around it with all it’s Gadlus Haborei, cannot do any “cheshbon” on any consequence, are not taught Nach and Jewish History through the ages (e.g. what period is covered by the Geonim, when did Rashi live, before or after the Rambam, when did the Baal Shem Tov live and why was the movement of Chassidus started etc.) The school movements concerned must negotiate for a core curriculum which is fitting for religious schools i.e. omits anything which is kefirah or of dubious hashkofos and we might even get students who understand the basics of everyday living. Not everyone will remain inlearning for ever.
@4, Believe me, honey, for the level of support they get from the government, they SHOULD have some leeway on what they teach. I can attest to that from the leaking roofs, no heat, and caravanim that my daughters’ BY school had.
And, I’m sure that the teacher’s salaries, as well, were lower. As the article states girl’s schools do comply with government standards, why not?
I never had any boys in Chinuch Atzmai …they went to private cheder, which, in those days, did not receive ANY government funds….but, as far as I know, the Chinuch Atzmai boy’s school gave some foundation in secular subjects(maybe not English).
This is just coercion on the part of the government to regulate the education and hence the lives of it’s citizens, and all of you who are so happy that the State of NY is helping out financially in Jewish Education, better look at this story and reconsider any government support.
#1 #4
If your crowd were a bit educated rather than brainwashed ,you possibly might be aware that Agudah originally
helped get the Balfour Declaration ,which was conditioned that they were to control education,but then they religious were promptly deceived and cheated out of it.
Furthermore ,when the state wasfounded and foisted there were four “streams”,
Ben gurion shut down two
Tell,is it a waste to attempt to explain what happened to all those who are”four legs are good,two legs are better”
category
Whatever were the religious displaying achdus the past couple months only to be promptly stabbed in the back again?!
The multiple commentors who aptly to defend any and all rish`us as long as it is wrapped within a flag and sprinkled with some pious vocabulary ,
if you really desire sacrifice your all for those who pat you on the head and go down with them ,there is only so much that can be done,
but at the minimum respect those who don’t wish give their children to those like king ahab ‘who kill and then inherit “their spoils
Learn history, even in good old wonderful Europe, Telse, Volozhin, etc. taught the language of the land & math for sure.
Akuperman- the bliss & beauty of ArB-Jewish relationship pre Zionism is a fantasy of yours & others. Our great grand father was stabbed by Ahmed in Iraq plus terror against infidels was the norm of life. The Arab Spring, nationalism, & religious fervor has destroyed any make believe peace efforts. The early pious Jews were harassed & killed by Arabs especially when they ventured out to Meah Shearim & Sharei Chesed in the mid 1800s.
We are in perilous & dangerous situation presently as predicted by Chazal as “birth pangs of Messiach” – so remove your battle gear & start using “KOL YAAKOV” – the voice of emes & integrity.
The bigger problem are the “other” core subjects
“rabbi” and educator shai Piron ym”sh who was being paid $145,000 per annum
for 5 years prior to becoming minister by the NIF, just to write and publish for the media to build anti charedi and religious sentiment
perhaps will allow the system some use of salary and skills