"Based on an inclusive assessment of the things done during
the present term by this government, I've reached the
conclusion that this is an anti-religious government in the
full sense of the word," MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni (UTJ) told the
government as he presented a no-confidence motion together
with HaIchud HaLeumi-NRP regarding the imminent dismissal of
dozens of local rabbonim. Rabbi Gafni made his remarks in the
full knowledge that the chareidi Shas party is a member of
the government coalition.
The motion was taken off the agenda with a majority of 50 MKs
from the coalition against just 11 MKs from the opposition
and 5 abstentions. The supporters were from United Torah
Judaism, the Likud, HaIchud HaLeumi-NRP and Ra'am-Ta'al. The
opponents came from coalition parties Kadima, Yisrael
Beiteinu, Shas, Pensioners and Labor. The abstentions were
from Meretz and two MKs from Arab parties.
The Knesset plenum also rejected two no-confidence motions
related to foreign affairs.
The Yisrael Beiteinu MKs who backed the government in the
first two no-confidence votes chose not to participate in the
vote and did not support the government in the Likud's no-
confidence motion on the issue of the building freeze in the
Territories. MK David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu) even warned
that his party would resign from the coalition if the
government continued its present course in dealings with the
Palestinians and its various concessions.
MK Rabbi Gafni spoke of the danger involved in dismissing
dozens of rabbonim following the Prime Minister's decision to
merge local authorities, meaning that one of every two local
rabbis would lose his post and turn into a religious council
worker, even though religious council employees would retain
their rights.
Rabbi Gafni also said no chief rabbis have been appointed for
years, with the exception of Tel Aviv, meaning that the
number of rabbis has already declined drastically, as if the
State is saying it has no need for rabbis. "Rabbis have gone
into retirement, rabbis have passed away [and no replacement
was appointed]. No need. Imagine a situation in which a
treasurer at a local authority retires, or the [city]
engineer retires, the mayor resigns, the [municipal]
secretary leaves. Would anyone consider not bringing in
someone to replace him immediately? But when it comes to
chief rabbis of cities and rabbis of neighborhoods, this is
not the case, and the number has gone down. In my opinion
there is a shortage of about 50 rabbis, and nobody is
speaking out. Everything is business as usual."
He went on to enumerate the Kadima-Shas government's
injustices against the chareidi public one-by-one, e.g. the
attempt to lower the salary of teachers at Agudas Yisroel
kindergartens with 30 years' experience from NIS 9,000 to
minimum wage. "This kind of thing doesn't happen in any
properly run country," he said.
He then discussed the scandalous budget cuts for the yeshivas
and kollelim, which have recently received notice that
although the 5768 academic is already well underway, support
funding for avreichim will be reduced by about one-
third in the current year and the allocation for foreign
yeshiva students will be cancelled entirely. "As I go from
one issue to the next, I'm not finding anything positive to
say about this government," said Rabbi Gafni.
He also noted that the nearly 50-percent cut in Welfare
Ministry funding for chareidi dormitories (mostly boys' high
schools known as yeshiva ketanos), from NIS 40 million
($10 million) to NIS 22 million ($5.5 million), as well as
the NIS 18 million ($4.5 million) cut in the budget for
girls' seminaries.
"Not a single issue related to the State of Israel as a
Jewish state...has remained intact. Everything has been
harmed, based on a clear ideology. Chief rabbis of cities are
unneeded, neighborhood rabbis are unneeded, yeshivas are
unneeded, the chareidi education system is unneeded. The only
thing that's needed is all sorts of neveilos and
treifos that can be imported. Customs are not
cancelled or reduced for anything — except for shrimp.
Just the shrotzim."
