Haredim Defraud State To Make Ba'alei Teshuva, State Willing Participant

In a strong piece of investigative journalism, Ha'aretz has uncovered fraud involving the haredi Agudath Israel school system and the Education Ministry. In effect, what has happened is that, in order to buy votes from haredim, the government has turned a blind eye to massive fraud. Haredim take money meant ot pay teachers and instead use much of that money to provide incentives to get poor and lower middle class non-haredim to turn their children over to the haredi school system.

Through this fraud, Haredim provide students free lunches and free transportation while state schools cannot.

Haredi schools are budgeted by the state as if they had a full staff of teachers teaching science, math, English, etc., but they do not, and the teachers they have do not get pensions and are paid less than than minimum wage. These teachers then rely on the state for further welfare benefits in order to survive while the rest of their budgeted compensation is used to lure non-haredi students into the system.

This all takes money away from state schools and hurts academic achievement there. It also puts added strain on the welfare system. And, as Ha'aretz notes, it does one more thing as well:

This is how the state, with its eyes wide open and knowing exactly what is happening, is paying for the movement of students from schools that teach them to be good citizens, serve in the army and go to work to schools that teach only religion [and oppose work and army service]…

The Bottom Line / Ripping off the secular taxpayer
By Meirav Arlosoroff

The Justice Ministry intervened a year ago and stopped the transportation budget for ultra-Orthodox pupils in the Mercaz Hahinuch Hatzmai religious school system belonging to the Agudat Yisrael party.

The schools had received an annual budget of NIS 35-40 million from the Education Ministry for transporting the pupils to their schools. This money was provided as part of the coalition agreements with the ultra-Orthodox factions in the government, and was justified by the need to bus students to schools far from their homes.

But an investigation by attorney Amnon de Hartouch, the head of the department in charge of budgetary support for institutions in the Attorney General's Office, determined that this transportation budget exhibited "a clear preference for pupils in the independent school system," at the expense of those in state schools, of course.

In this way, the Justice Ministry's examination showed that pupils in state schools do not receive transportation to school at the Education Ministry's expense if there is a state school nearer to their home. However, ultra-Orthodox pupils do receive free bus rides, even if there is an appropriate ultra-Orthodox school near their homes.

That is only the beginning. The Justice Ministry also determined that due to a lack of appropriate supervision from the Education Ministry, the transportation budget was handled improperly.

According to the Justice ministry's investigation, the Mercaz Hahinuch Hatzmai funneled some of the transportation funds to bus newly religious students to other schools. The school system, it turns out, was very careful to separate the newly religious pupils from the born and bred ultra-Orthodox, apparently because such newly religious are not considered worthy to attend the regular schools of the system.

Since it was clear to everyone that without such transportation the newly religious would not attend these ultra-Orthodox schools, they went out of their way to take care of the problem. This is how the schools funded, using non-religious taxpayers' money, the network for bringing back children to religion.

Free transportation, it turns out, has a critical role in persuading non-religious and traditional families to switch to networks of ultra-Orthodox schools intended for the newly religious.

And not only free transportation. The free hot lunches provided in these schools for those finding religion - as well as the meals in ultra-Orthodox schools in general - are an important means of making these schools much more attractive to parents, at the expense of the state school system.

In the competition for the hearts and minds of students from the lower classes, such services can be very important, and in this battle the ultra-Orthodox schools have the upper hand.

The reality is that services the state schools cannot afford to provide are passed out freely by the ultra-Orthodox schools. Education Minister Yuli Tamir attributed this in a conversation with TheMarker to the charitable contributions the ultra-Orthodox religious schools receive, since they are semi-private. This allows them accept such contributions legally.

However, the Justice Ministry's investigation revealed that Tamir's explanation is only a partial one at best. Only a small part of such additional services provided by the ultra-Orthodox schools are paid for by contributions. Most of the money seems to come from government funding - the Israeli taxpayer - via the Education Ministry budget.

In some cases, the ministry allocates the ultra-Orthodox specific budgets for these services, thereby clearly discriminating against the regular state schools.

In other cases, the Education Ministry provides the funds required by law, but without checking to see what is actually done with the money. This is why one of the common features in ultra-Orthodox schools is a lack of strict enforcement of the rights of employees and teachers.

The teachers receive lower wages than the law entails or salaries without any required fringe benefits such as pensions. The money saved on teachers' salaries can be spent on the additional services provided by the ultra-Orthodox school networks.

Another trick is transferring the money to pay for even more services, based on the assumption that if - and when - a financial crisis comes about, the coalition pressures will force the state to cover the deficits.

This is how the Agudat Yisrael preschool system recently ran up NIS 120 million in debts, partly due to all the benefits it provided to the new children who joined. In this case the Education Ministry forced the system to implement a recovery plan that included firing teachers as well as closing down preschools that were losing money. But at the same time the rehabilitation plan obviously included an influx of funds from the ministry's budget.

And as if all that is not enough, the Education Ministry has created conditions that enable these ultra-Orthodox schools to legally gain another advantage. The ministry budgets these schools at the full rate, or almost at 100 percent of it, even though the ministry knows that the schools' education expenditures are significantly lower in practice.

This is how in the case of secondary schools the budgets of yeshivas are only 20 percent lower than those of state schools, even though the ultra-Orthodox schools do not have a gymnasium, physics and chemistry labs, as well as a staff of teachers for English, mathematics, science or civics. In the worst case, such ultra-Orthodox schools have one rabbi teaching a hall filled with 300 pupils at the same time.

The result, in any case, is obvious: the State of Israel is investing its valuable resources to make these ultra-Orthodox schools more attractive - at the expense of the state schools.

This is how the state, with its eyes wide open and knowing exactly what is happening, is paying for the movement of students from schools that teach them to be good citizens, serve in the army and go to work to schools that teach only religion instead of making a living.

Comments

[Alex]

The whole "learning torah protects Israel" thing is a scam just so the haredim can avoid work & army.

[Yochanan Lavie]

Both the left and the right political parties bribe the chareidim in return for support of their agendas. It's very cynical.

[PishPosh]

You are both right about that. Im sure you know the drash about how Yehoshua and Chur held up Moshes arms to heaven because emunat and bitachon beHashem would win the day, not blatts.

[ed]

>The whole "learning torah protects Israel" thing is a scam just so the haredim can avoid work & army.

Its an explicit Halacha In Shulchan Aruch, you blithering ignorant.

[Shmarya]

You are the "blthering idiot," ed. There is NO such halakha.

In wars of self defense, which surely Israel's are, there are NO exemptions given to scholars.

[Alex]

Ed- why don't you immigrate to Iran as a dhimmi? I figured u would cause u are a dummy.

[shmuel]

Mr. Ed:
Riddle me this: if Torah study is the great protector you claim it is:
1. Why did it not protect Israel of 2000 years ago, seeing as how it was filled with Tannaim, the very greatest rabbinic scholars? The Romans ran right over them and Bar Kochba too. Some protection.
2. Why did the great Talmudic scholarship of the Tosafists not protect the Jewish communities of Europe during the Crusades?
3. There were some great Torah scholars alive in the mid 1600's, too, and if are to believe haredi (false) history, everyone was frum, and learning Torah! Why, then, did the decimating massacres by Chmelnitzky occur?
4. I guess I don't have to inquire about the Holocaust. Lots of bnei yeshiva, lots of Torah studied, 6 million dead, European Jewry burnt to a crisp, vanished. Over. Protection?
Ed? Hello? You there? Ed? I need an answer.

[malachhamovies]

Ed,

Just curious. First off, if the state is treif why protect it. Kollel people should have in mind, when learning, to have the state dismantled peacefully (that was the satmar rebbe's shita and kavana). Wouldn't that kavana be more appropiate ??

Also, before davening for a sick person we mention the person's name. I have never heard of a case of a mashgiach in a yeshiva proclaim first thing in the morning after breakfast - Listen Up Bachurim ! Today we are learning torah so that the jewish people in our land should be protected.

I think the tears of a poor yemenite jew at the kotel might also be instrumental in protecting the jewish people. Yet, i don't see someone like him walking around thinking that he is g-d's gift to the jewish people.

[shmuel]

Spot on. Indeed, why protect a treife state? I often wondered why yeshiva guys like to argue that their study protects Israel. And, right again, never heard anyone ever dedicate that day's study to the welfare and continued existence of the state of Israel. Sounds almost crazy to imagine a mashgiach would ever say it. Yasher koach, malachhamovies!

[malachhamovies]

Shmuel,

Thanks for the kind comments. Although many people despise the views of satmar and neturei karta, in reality, their views are less disingenuous then the typical israeli charedei (just give me the money because i'm protecting you and i'm better then you) arguments.

By the way, the satmar rebbe mentions this point in his sefer "Al Hageula V'al Hatruma".

He writes that Israel should be taken over by the UN (not the arabs) and to daven that the state should be dismantled peacefully.

[shmuel]

MHM,
Right again: they are at least consistent and less deceitful. But Israel being taken over by the UN is some heck of a pipe dream, with hundreds of millions of Arabs surrounding Israel. I don't even know what it means to dismantle a nation "peacefully" and neither did he.
Just a little quibble: it's "Temurah" (exchange) not Trumah (tithes).
Keep it coming!

[malachhamovies]

Shmuel,

Duly noted. Thanks !

[Alex]

Why should the state give the haredim a dime if they are going to bite the hand that feeds them?