Finance Committee Chairman MK Rabbi Moshe Gafni fired a stiff attack against the Education Ministry and the court, which have been closing ranks to thwart the success of the Torah-based education system, making every effort to undermine Torah-true educational frameworks.
"We will all stand together in an unbending struggle over the sacred principle of the education of our sons and daughters," he said, in advance of a hearing on Wednesday of the Movement for Quality Government's petition against the funding of exempt educational institutions, and following the publication of the state's reaction to the matter in which it again seeks to intervene in the curriculum of exempt institutions, imposing the Core Curriculum program on them.
Meanwhile the High Court announced that it has accepted the state's position to foist the Core Curriculum program on chareidi schools by cutting and canceling funding.
In light of these recent developments, on Monday Rabbi Gafni said these efforts to interfere with the curriculum taught at chareidi schools "is a declaration of war by state institutions against Torah-based education, which has succeeded according to all measures. Instead of addressing the secular education system, which has totally failed in all parameters; instead of learning from the chareidi education system and implementing it in the failed secular education system; every effort is being made — both by the Education Ministry and the court — to harm the successful chareidi education system.
"Both the Education Ministry and the court will run up against a buttressed, impassable wall," he added, "and all of us will stand together in an unbending struggle over the sacred principle of the education of our sons and daughters. Since the state's founding everyone has clearly understood that this education system is founded upon and run based solely on the instructions of gedolei Torah."
Commenting on the Movement for Quality Government's petition, the Finance Committee chairman said that several years ago he notified them that in spite of their appearance of being apolitical, in reality they operate as a political organization in every respect and wage battle against the chareidi sector. Therefore he does not cooperate with them in any way.
At an emergency meeting of talmud Torah principals from around the country Tuesday night a statement was issued saying, "Educational institutions reject outright the oft-repeated attempts to interfere in the education of Jewish children. The principals of these institutions only accept directives from our rabbonim, gedolei Yisroel shlita, who faithfully convey the teachings of the navigators of the ship of pure Torah education, who are the only ones authorized to determine the curriculum and the educational arrangements and structure."
