In Knesset Finance Committee deliberations held on 22 Kislev
about the budget of the Religious Affairs Ministry, Rabbi
Moshe Gafni raised the serious problem of budgetary
discrimination against Torah institutions and religious
services.
Rabbi Gafni stressed that according to the Blumenberg-Gavish
Committee appointed to study funding of Jewish services, NIS
300 million should have been added to the forthcoming year's
budgets for Torah institutions. In fact, they suffered a cut
of NIS 25 million.
He said that the budget of secular institutions of higher
learning for the year 2000 has grown by half a billion
shekels, and that their development budgets have nearly
tripled since 1998. In the same period, Torah institutions
have received absolutely no development budgets.
"I think that improvements are needed in the administration
of both the Religious Affairs Ministry and the religious
councils and that the system should be revamped," Rabbi Gafni
stressed. "We are opposed to double funding and in favor of
the consolidation of services under one roof. Last year, the
culture budget was consolidated in the Education Ministry,
according to the guidelines of the Attorney General. However
he stipulated that the budget should not be cut. Nonetheless,
the Torah culture budget was cut by 50%. All this casts
aspersions upon the sincerity of those who argue for
improving administration efficiency, and seems to imply that
their purpose is really to undermine the funding."
Rabbi Gafni then pointed to the injustice done by granting
religious services by entire sectors of the state. As an
example, he cited new cities and neighborhoods which have
been provided with schools, kindergartens and community
centers, but not with synagogues and mikvehs. He told
the committee members about his tour to the Ramat Aviv Gimmel
neighborhood, arranged by the neighborhood committee. During
his visit, he said, residents approached him with tear-filled
eyes. They informed him of the sorry situation in which a
neighborhood with 20,000 residents lacks a synagogue, while
their entire region, with 60,000 residents has no
mikveh.
Rabbi Gafni called upon members of the Finance Committee not
to approve the budget of the Religious Affairs Ministry in
its current format but rather, to adjust it as dictated by
the actual situation in the field and by comparative sections
of the state budget.
At the end of the deliberations, the committee decided to
postpone the response of the Finance Minister and the vote on
the Religious Affairs Ministry budget to a later date.
