The Knesset's Finance Committee is the state's biggest conversion system. The state budget is handed over to the committee like a newborn baby and undergoes a proper conversion process there. When the committee is headed by an ultra-Orthodox Knesset member, the funds are channeled to haredi bodies and goals. MK [Rabbi] Moshe Gafni of the [Ashkenazi haredi] United Torah Judaism [Party] once said proudly, on the record, that when the government decided to apply across-the board budget cuts to all of its ministries, "I took [their] decision to cut NIS 350 million from the world of Torah and threw it in the garbage."
Above: MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni
Amnon Abramovich, a Channel 2 News commentator, writes in Ynet:
On the eve of this [most recent Israeli] government's establishment, Economy Minister Naftali Bennett promised that there would be no more coalition funds.
Bennett condemned the phenomenon of these political funds vehemently and firmly. He wrote it on Facebook and stated it in public. He sounded convincing and the things he said were definitely impressive.
There was one person who was unimpressed and unconvinced: His No. 2 in the Bayit Yehudi party, Construction Minister Uri Ariel. About a year ago, Ariel gave an interview to a [parsha sheet] called Shvii, which is distributed [each week] in synagogues across the country. In that interview, Ariel boasted: "We brought into the yeshiva world NIS 120 million (about $30 million) in coalition funds and we will bring more."
The Knesset's Finance Committee is the state's biggest conversion system. The state budget is handed over to the committee like a newborn baby and undergoes a proper conversion process there.When the committee is headed by an ultra-Orthodox Knesset member, the funds are channeled to haredi bodies and goals. MK [Rabbi] Moshe Gafni of the [Ashkenazi haredi] United Torah Judaism [Party] once said proudly, on the record, that when the government decided to apply across-the board budget cuts to all of its ministries, "I took [their] decision to cut NIS 350 million from the world of Torah and threw it in the garbage."
When the committee is headed by a settler MK, like Nissan Slomiansky, the funds are channeled to the settlement enterprise. The money is subtracted from encouraging employment in the periphery, from daycare centers, from the elderly.
…At the end of each year, a long line would form at the Knesset's corridors, opposite the Finance Committee. Until the High Court of Justice came and ruled that things must be uniform and equal. That didn't help either. The ruling was bypassed.
Attorney Amnon de Hartog was head of the Justice Ministry's support unity. A concerned civil servant. So concerned that he once slapped a haredi Knesset member from United Torah Judaism.
Attorney de Hartog was pedantic about spending support funds. The haredi politician was pedantic about pumping [up] funds for [haredi] associations. He said to de Hartog, "You are worse than the Germans, than the Nazis." De Hartog, the son of Holocaust survivors, couldn’t tolerate the provocation and slapped him.…