The Chinuch Atzmai Parents' Committee of Jerusalem is warning
against the risk of contracting illnesses and infectious
diseases in the city's schools after the Justice Ministry and
the Jerusalem Municipality's legal advisor issued a decision
forbidding the local authority from funding municipal
educational institutions.
According to directives issued by Atty. Amnon de Hartoch,
head of the Support Funding Department at the Justice
Ministry, local authorities may not provide chareidi
educational institutions routine services including
renovation work, safety work, maintenance, and the like. He
also determined municipal buildings may only be made
available for use by Chinuch Atzmai and Maayan Hachinuch
HaTorani following full allocation procedures.
The Justice Ministry directives were based on de Hartoch's
interpretation regarding the funding of educational
institutions by the local authorities. According to his
interpretation, the Budget Law allows equality between the
chareidi and general education systems in matters involving
funding directly from the state, but not funds from local
authorities. In order to rectify this distortion the law must
be changed slightly to require the local authorities as well
to provide equal funding, an issue that appears in the
coalition agreement with Shas but which has not yet been
carried out.
Following the Justice Ministry directive in Elul, the
Jerusalem Municipality notified the heads of the chareidi
education system that the municipality would have to cease
employing municipal workers at the end of the 5767 school
year, including head janitors, cleaning workers, secretaries
and aides, and that starting Dec. 1st (last Friday) municipal
funds could no longer be used for heating fuel supplies,
routine maintenance, renovations, cleaning supplies or the
supply or purchase of any other products.
The cessation of cleaning work at the municipality's chareidi
educational institutes will invariably lead to severe hygiene
problems within a short period of time.
Principals from all of Jerusalem's Bais Yaakov schools were
on hand at a Chinuch Atzmai Parents' Committee meeting last
week to discuss the crisis. Committee Chairman Rabbi Gedaliah
Sheinin warned the principals that the lack of daily cleaning
services could pose a genuine health risk. "There are
concerns we might not be able to allow 18,000 girls at
Jerusalem schools to come to school if the buildings are not
cleaned."
Rabbi Sheinin said that the decision to keep 18,000 girls at
home is a weighty matter, "but we are relating even more
seriously to the concern that a single girl could contract an
infectious disease due to a lack of cleanliness. Who can
compensate the girl and her family in such a case,
choliloh?"
At the end of the meeting it was decided to ask chareidi
Knesset representatives to solve the crisis by seeing to
proper operations at educational institutions in Jerusalem
and every other part of the country.
