Torah institution principals and administrators recently
participated in an emergency conference held in the Vishnitz
Hotel in Bnei Brak. At the conference, they expressed their
concern over the intention to dismantle the Religious Affairs
Ministry as part of Prime Minster Barak's "secular
revolution."
The conference opened with the recitation of Tehillim
led by HaRav Shmuel Dror. A message from HaRav Aharon Leib
Steinman was then conveyed. HaRav Steinman said that we must
firmly oppose the dismantling of the Religious Affairs
Ministry. "This step is liable to be dangerous and to
yeshivos, Torah institutions and religious services," he
noted. HaRav Steinman also instructed Knesset members Rabbi
Avrohom Ravitz and Rabbi Moshe Gafni to make every effort to
prevent dismantling of the Ministry. He added that he was
confident that they would do their utmost to prevent the
secular revolution.
Rabbi Tzvi Roth, conference moderator, said that closure of
the Religious Affairs Ministry and transfer of its
departments to other offices not only constitutes a financial
danger, but most importantly an ideological danger,
especially since the government seeks to intervene in the
curricula of the yeshivos.
Rabbi Yaakov Cohen from the Gerrer Institutions discussed the
harm likely to result from the distribution of the
departments of the Religious Affairs Ministry among the
various ministries.
Rabbi Abraham Friedman of the Or Hachaim institutions
discussed the monetary debts of the Religious Affairs
Ministry to the yeshivos, and noted that in practical terms
this means that there will be delays in the routine transfer
of funds to the yeshivos during the next three months.
HaRav Meir Jungerman, head of the Torah institutions in
Zichron Yaakov, called for the strengthening of Torah study
and added that in order to increase donations from our
generous brethren outside of the country, perhaps centralized
fund be set up to solicit funds for Torah institutions.
Participants at the conference announced the following
decisions:
1. The conference calls upon the Prime Minister to remove the
topic of yeshivos and other Torah educational institutes from
the political arena. We have been promised that Torah will
never be forgotten from our mouths and the mouths of our
children and their children forever. Chazal tell us that from
the times of our holy fathers Avrohom, Yitzchok and Yaakov
the study Torah has not ceased.
2. The conference, therefore, anticipates that the heads of
government will regard yeshivos and Torah institutions as the
main priority of the Religious Affairs Ministry. In its fifty
years it has aided and helped merit them to flourish,
enabling them to raise blessed, worthy generations sustaining
the traditions of the Jewish people and concomitantly, to
return those who have faltered to the Father in Heaven.
3. The conference calls upon all chareidi and religious
parties to back us in the struggle by the heads of the
yeshivos not to change the current location of the Department
for Yeshivos (Organizations and Institutions Branch in the
Religious Affairs Ministry) even if other Ministry functions
are eventually transferred elsewhere.
4. The conference wishes to inform the public of the serious
outcome of the dismantling of the Religious Affairs Ministry
and the ramifications of change in its format.
5. The conference asks the Knesset members of the chareidi
and religious parities not to conduct any negotiations at
this point with the heads of the government, since the
dismantling of the Religious Affairs Ministry is part of the
planned "secular revolution."
6. The conference calls upon leaders and generous Jews in
Eretz Yisroel and abroad to expand their share in our burden
as in the Yissochor and Zevulun partnership, and in that
manner to help us maintain our Torah institutions.
