In a move that has chareidim surprised and angered, the Ministry of Education has distributed a memorandum informing yeshivos that funding will be cut for talmidim who do not report to IDF induction centers for upon receipt of their first draft notice.
What occurred is that yeshivos administrators sent the lists of talmidim to the ministry, lists that are essential to obtain funding. Ministry officials informed yeshivos that some of the names were being removed as the persons in question have yet to report to an induction center as required by law. This will hit yeshivos affiliated with HaGaon HaRav Shmuel Auerbach Shlita particularly hard since Rav Auerbach instructs his talmidim not to visit induction centers, not even the first time to fill out forms furnishing personal information.
Kikar Shabbos News adds that the regulation was to go into effect about three years ago but it did not for one reason or another.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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5 Responses
The coalition barely began when the charedim spat in the face of the D”L community by seeking to remove harav Riskin. This is Bennett shoving back. Good for him.
Yes, Bennet is in charge of Ministry of Education. Really cooperating with his fellow coalitionists.
This doesn’t affect anti-zionist yeshivos since they don’t received government funding. Whenever a frum organization accepts funding from outside the frum community they become vulnerable to blackmail. The reason the non-frum give money to frum bodies is to encourage them “become more reasonable”, meaning to cut back on the yiddishkeit in order to get more gelt.
#1. This has nothing to do with Bennett. The law always required Bochrim to report for the initial stage of the draft. At that stage, ratings are determined for each person to determine their future IDF status.
Bochrim, in the past, always reported for this stage and were given deferments.
This isn’t a Chareidi issue per se’ on the part of the government. They are forced to take action to prevent total anarchy.
It would be an entirely different issue if deferments were not granted and Bochrim were forced to report to the IDF for induction. B”H, as of now, this is not the case.
I do think that if they are not learning, they should serve. Why are they better than anyone else? There is still the option of Sheirut Leumi too.
#4 – Barry, I think you missed the point of the article. What you write is perfectly correct regarding punishing a bochur who fails to report. The article, however, is reporting a new initiative by Bennett to financially sanction the yeshiva that the bochur attends. This is not (yet) dictated by law and has not been the practice. It is a new initiative by Bennett whose authority to do so stems from his new position as Minister of Education, which funds yeshivot. This initiative is not something that Bennett ran on or promised and the fact that he suddenly came up with it within 24 hours of the attack on harav Riskin strongly indicates causation – he is shoving back to protect harav Riskin (and potentially all D”L rabbis) from attack from the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Chief Rabbinate – which are under charedi control.