There was a sharp confrontation last week in the Knesset
Finance Committee between the chareidi representatives and
deputy Attorney General Amnon de Hertoch regarding the major
cutbacks in the Education Ministry's support of chareidi
cultural institutions.
At the beginning of the meeting MK Litzman said that it was
totally unacceptable that towards the end of the financial
year the Ministry of Education had paid Torah cultural
organizations only 20 percent of what they were entitled to.
"I do not know who is responsible for this, but it is obvious
that this problem has to be solved as quickly as possible,
because these organizations are carrying out thousands of
important activities," Litzman said.
Director-General of the Education Ministry Ronit Tirosh
agreed that these organizations were undergoing a serious
crisis, and said that a compromise should be found.
Deputy Education Minister Meshulam Nahari (Shas), who is also
responsible for Torah culture, presented the Committee with a
survey of the history of governmental support of chareidi
cultural organizations. He explained that the source of the
problem was a change in the number of "points" granted to
each activity of a chareidi cultural organization, it having
been recently (and suddenly) determined that Torah
shiurim would be at the bottom of the scale and only
receive one point, as compared to 150 points received by an
activity in the field of secular culture. "I fail to
understand why Torah shiurim, of all things, are
granted the lowest number of points," Nahari commented.
In discussions with the Justice Ministry about the points
system he had insisted that no changes should take place in
the middle of the year since organizations do not change
their activities in the middle of the year. When the
Education Ministry Committee met to distribute the funds, the
extent of the crisis became clear. NPOs which had been
financed for ten years, collapsed. There has been a reduction
of 50 percent and more in funds for Torah shiurim, and
some established NPOs such as Arachim have suffered a 90%
decrease in funding. Instead of NIS 4.5 million a year the
organization is due to receive only NIS 260,000 according to
the new criteria.
Nahari said that he assumes that the Justice Ministry, which
drew up the new criteria, also did not intend to bring about
the collapse of the cultural organizations, but only to
effect a change in the budgetary allocation. He therefore
proposed the formulation of uniform regulations covering all
cultural activities, whether religious or secular. According
to his proposal the whole budget would be transferred from
the Education Ministry to the Ministry of Culture, and the
Education Ministry would only retain control over sections
which were identical for all sectors, and the sum awarded per
hour and per activity would also be the same.
Deputy Attorney General Amnon de Hertoch said that the
Education Ministry had been given plenty of time to draw up
the new criteria, which were designed to create equality
between the financing of Torah shiurim and the
financing of secular culture. He even claimed that since the
change took place in the middle of the year the chareidi
organizations were given a 45 percent increase compared to
non- religious organizations, and that next year there would
be equality with all organizations receiving the same sum per
hour of study.
In the ensuing discussion MKs disputed de Hertoch's claim
that the Education Ministry was given two years to prepare
changes in the criteria. They claimed that throughout the
years the funding of Torah cultural activities was much less
than the funding of secular cultural activities.
MK Paritzky (Shinui) claimed that all Torah cultural
activities were just activities to make people observant, and
were thus not cultural but political in nature. MK Halpert
denied this and argued that they were dealing with the
dissemination of Torah and other genuine Torah activities, in
which about 5 million people a year took part. "You will
never manage to deny our right to learn Torah, to give Torah
shiurim and to receive funding for it. We are fully
entitled to this and this is our culture against which you
conspire on a daily basis," said Halpert.
MK Gafni asked Adv. de Hertoch whether the criteria used by
the Science Ministry for the support of scientific, sport,
and other organizations were legal and whether those funds
were also frozen. He said that in 1999 the Education Ministry
budget for Torah education amounted to NIS 83 million as
opposed to 71 million this year. In addition, the Income Tax
authorities had also asked for their 23 percent share from
each allocation. Gafni pointed out that Torah shiurim
were the only cultural activities engaged in by the chareidi
public, and he demanded that an immediate solution be found
for the critical situation of organizations with debts of
millions of NIS who had not paid any wages for the past ten
months. "Why does the Habima theater receive support unlinked
to any criteria and the Justice Ministry does not freeze
these funds, whereas Torah cultural organization are left to
collapse?" Gafni asked.
The comptroller of the Education Ministry, Nissan Raz, said
that all the applications for support received by the
Ministry were checked and since the Committee had already
signed the budgetary report there was no possibility of
changing the budgetary allocation.
