"We will assist dormitory Torah institutions whose budgets
were cut one year ago as well as Torah-based frameworks for
students not [enrolled] at existing institutions using
funding sources beyond the State budget," Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon promised Deputy Welfare Minister MK Rabbi
Avrohom Ravitz during a meeting on the issues of welfare and
education.
Sharon and Rabbi Ravitz discussed the Ministerial Committee's
approach to handling poverty. The Prime Minister said he
intends to attack the problem head-on, focusing his attention
on confronting poverty among yaldei Yisroel.
Rabbi Ravitz, who attended an earlier meeting of the Work,
Welfare and Health Committee on the issue of poverty among
Jewish children, said that even after the Prime Minister
issued instructions to stop discrimination in the hot-lunch
program the problem has not yet been solved and there are
still children being blackballed and denied a bowl of soup
and a slice of bread. As a result the mayor of the chareidi
city Beitar was compelled to petition the High Court to order
the government to include the children of his town in the
program.
The Prime Minister signed revisions to support criteria for
the Welfare Ministry's public institutions and they are
currently being listed on the books. Before the school year
opened last year, then Welfare Minister Zevulun Orlev
announced the discontinuation of funding for chareidi dorm
facilities until the criteria were revised. Orlev formed a
"team of experts" to change the funding criteria in
accordance with his worldview. Meanwhile he cut the funding
from NIS 60 million to just NIS 28 million. In response to a
question by MK Chemi Doron (Shinui), Orlev explained frankly
that he had cut the budget after "discovering" that the
majority of dorm facilities were chareidi.
Orlev made three changes in the criteria that created serious
problems for yeshivos ketanos, yeshivos gedolos (where
talmidim under age 18 are also eligible) and other
Torah institutions. One paragraph restricts funding to
institutions with a minimum enrollment of 60 students living
in the dormitories; another paragraph states that a student
is only eligible to receive funding if he resides outside the
city where the institution is located or his family has four
other young children who do not receive direct or indirect
dormitory facility funding from the State; and a third
paragraph increases funding by 20 percent to institutions
where students take part in secular studies—a paragraph
obviously not motivated by welfare considerations.
Yeshiva organizations announced that these conditions make it
difficult for them to operate and many of them are now on the
verge of collapse. They also announced that the opening of
new yeshivos ketanos would be very difficult in the
coming school year.
Since taking office as deputy minister of welfare (with no
full minister above him) Rabbi Ravitz said his primary aim is
to restore what was stolen from yeshiva students. Rabbi
Ravitz and the ministry staff have consulted with various
figures involved in these matters as part of his efforts to
reinstate the original criteria.
The three discriminatory criteria have now been changed and
no longer apply. Support funding will be transferred to Torah-
based institutions with a minimum of 30 students. The secular
studies paragraph was deleted and a different criteria has
replaced the requirement for the recipient to have four
siblings studying in dorm facilities without State
support.
Rabbi Ravitz also met with Finance Ministry and Prime
Minister's Office officials as part of efforts to restore
cutback yeshiva funding.
