Member of Knesset Rabbi Moshe Gafni of the Ashkenazi haredi United Torah Judaism Party lashed out at Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein from the podium of the Knesset today, calling Rubenstein a “rasha [evil one] who stole the bread away from [haredi] children.”
Above: MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni
Haredi MK: Supreme Court Justice “Evil One Who Stole Bread From [Haredi] Children”
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Member of Knesset Rabbi Moshe Gafni of the Ashkenazi haredi United Torah Judaism Party lashed out at Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein from the podium of the Knesset today, calling Rubenstein a “rasha [evil one] who stole the bread away from [haredi] children,” Yeshiva World reported.
Rubenstein – who is Modern Orthodox – wrote the court’s ruling released earlier this week that stops state subsidies for married haredi yeshiva students because the subsidies discriminate against non-haredim.
Gafni said the court’s ruling will hurt the married yeshiva students and their families, who are poor.
“Not those [haredi yeshiva students] who learn [in yeshivas full time] and their wives work and they have an apartment,” Gafni thundered, “but those who have nothing and will now have even less” will be hurt. The court’s ruling is “cruel,” Gafni said, and will leave a growing number of haredi children without basic necessities – not even a slice of bread.
At the direction of their rabbinic leaders, haredi men refuse to serve in the military and more than half refuse to work, opting instead to study in yeshivas full time and subsist on government subsidies, welfare, charity and, in some cases, the salaries earned by their wives, most of whom teach in haredi schools and earn near minimum wage.