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NEWS
Positions Regarding the Budgetary Support of Yeshivos
Will Soon be Formulated
by Eliezer Rauchberger
The Religious Affairs Ministry and the Justice and Finance
Ministries will, within two weeks, formulate a position
regarding transforming the form of funding the yeshivos from
extra-budgetary support to a regular budgeted item.
This decision was made this past Monday (27 Sivan) at a
meeting of the Interior Committee of the Knesset which
discussed the possibility of transferring yeshiva funding by
the government from an extra-budgetary item of "support" to
a regular part of the budget. Tzvi Chalamish, the deputy of
the General Bursar in the Finance Ministry, admitted that
the Ministry accords top priority to the budget, and that
supports are last on its order of priorities.
The attorney, Amnon de Hertoch of the Justice Ministry said
that budget subsidizing is an activity which the government
considers obligated to execute, while it doesn't regard
support as obligatory. Therefore if there are difficulties
regarding funding, the first to be hurt are those
institutions which the state doesn't feel obligated to
subsidize. He stressed that transferring a body from a
supportive form to a subsidized one can only be effected by
a government decision.
The committee also dealt with the determining of set dates
for the transfer of the funds of the Religious Affairs
Ministry. The general director of the Religious Affairs
Ministry, Moshe Shimoni, said that the Ministry is
dismantled and has no orderly budget and no clear
procedures. He agreed that clear procedures regarding the
issue of the subsidizing of the yeshivos must be
established, and said that the bad name which the Religious
Affairs Ministry has, in his opinion, unjustly received must
be cleared.
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