Deputy Minister of Education R’ Meir Porush accuses Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) director Yitzchak Tunik of inciting and airing programming against the yeshivish world.

“The military radio station using cheap propaganda” against the chareidi community alleges Porush, achieving its goal by broadcasting inaccurate and unfounded reports. The deputy minister made reference to a report filed by Kalman Lipskind, whose findings appeared in the daily Maariv.

“Galei Tzahal correspondent Rino Tzror has an extremist political agenda, one that is influenced by “coarse arrogance”. When he permits someone with a different view express himself on the air, he will be certain to shut him up or embarrass him.

Portions of the Maariv report…

“Two weeks ago he discussed yeshiva students who receive stipends from the state, stating there are 11,000 of them, each receiving 1,000 NIS monthly after declaring they meet the criteria for the funding. T. Nesher of the station checked with the Education Ministry to see if such statements are followed up for accuracy, to confirm if they are indeed true, stating the facts are ‘difficult to digest’.

“Nesher reported that in 2009, a private firm investigated 190 avreichim and found that 66 of them, over a third, lied in their declaration. Tzror stated the ‘sampling’ points to avreichim receiving support when they shouldn’t be. Tzror took the sampling of 190 and ruled this is the situation regarding all 11,000.

“A statistical computation indicates that if over 30% are not entitled, over NIS 4 million were wasted in 2009”.

Maariv reports the entire report is tainted since Galei Tzahal knew ahead of airing the facts that the numbers are not representative of reality. The people responsible for the report learned the ministry does indeed check from time-to-time to verify the declarations made by avreichim, explaining the ministry learned of a number of avreichim who did not tell the truth, and they were blacklisted. That is the so-called 190 people monitored by Galei Tzahal, those on the ministry’s black list. Therefore, they do not represent a random sampling of the 11,000 avreichim involved. Maariv explains that Army Radio used this black list, portraying it as a random sampling among the 11,000. 

Porush sent a letter to Tunik demanding an explanation, with a copy sent to Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who is ultimately responsible for Galei Tzahal (Army Radio).

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)