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NEWS
UTJ Meets with PM over Housing, Education and Guaranteed
Income
By Yechiel Sever
The United Torah Judaism faction met early this week with
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in his Knesset bureau,
where they raised for discussion problems related to housing,
education and Guaranteed Income. The meeting was attended by
Eyal Gabbai, director-general of the Prime Minister's Office;
Tzvi Hauser, government secretary; Natan Eshel, director of
the Prime Minister's Office; and P. Lerner, an advisor to the
Prime Minister.
On the issue of housing they discussed the crisis in the
general public, focusing on the chareidi sector, where young
couples are unable to buy a decent apartment for a variety of
reasons, such as high construction taxes, a lack of available
lots, a shortage of 2- and 3-room apartments and price
increases. Therefore the government should renew the location
grants, provide mortgage loans with easy terms, reduce
taxation, unfreeze land, reduce development costs and rescind
the taxes.
Regarding education, they discussed the High Court decision
on applying the Core Curriculum program in Chinuch Atzmai,
which was adopted by the Minister of Education, with an
immediate reduction in funding of tens of millions of
shekels, and the Education Ministry's response to the High
Court ruling, including an announcement by the ministry that
it intends to get involved in the curriculum taught at
talmudei Torah and Chinuch Atzmai and to assign
inspectors — deviating from practices that have been in
place since the country was founded — as well as a
demand that the government continue to defend funding the
yeshivos ketanos and other institutions.
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