Israel – The High Court of Justice on Wednesday demanded that the government explain within 90 days why it continues to pay income support allotments to married men studying full time in institutes for full-time, advanced study of the Talmud and rabbinic literature (kollels).
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In June 2010, the High Court ruled that the government could not continue providing allotments only to ultra-Orthodox students, while other students, such as those studying at university, do not receive similar income support. The court said that the practice was illegal and discriminatory.
To address the ruling, the government in December 2010 drew up new terms for the allotment of income support for kollel students, limiting the period for receiving the money to five years for kollel students under the age of 29. This accounted for only 10 percent of all kollel students. The new plan also provided an extra NIS 50 million for university students in need of financial support.
At the High Court hearing on Wednesday for the petition against the income support allowances, Justice Miriam Naor asked the state’s representative, “How can we not issue an injunction? The situation as it was and as it is now, will continue into the future, and this will not bring about equality.”
The petition was filed in January by the National Students Union, Hiddush – For Religious Freedom and Equality, the Masorti (Conservative) Movement, the Israel Religious Action Center of the Reform Movement, the religious-Zionist Neemanei Torah VeAvodah NGO and several other organizations.
Since December 2010, approximately 10,000 kollel students have continued to receive the allotments of NIS 1,040 a month.
Students eligible for this stipend are those who are married with three or more children and whose total monthly income is less than NIS 1,200. Approximately 70,000 kollel students also receive NIS 920 a month study allotments from the state.
Following Wednesday’s High Court ruling, Rabbi Shlomo Brilant, chairman of the Union of Yeshivot, defended the allotment system.
“A married kollel student with children gets in total roughly NIS 3,000, including the income allowances and kollel contributions,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “Do you think that living in such circumstances on NIS 3,000 is pleasant? It’s not, so why do they do this? Because they sacrifice their lives for the sake of studying Torah. Someone who takes up this lifestyle does not do it for the love of money but for the love of Judaism. I don’t think people who dedicate their lives and sacrifice themselves for studying Torah should be punished in this way,” Brilant said.
“I am certain that the Supreme Court will not allow this inequality to persist,” said Ofri Raviv, vice chairman of the National Students Union. “This is a struggle for Zionism that is also part of the social [equality] protests and another stage in the strengthening of the State of Israel.”
A senior ultra-Orthodox political adviser argued in response to the ruling that the criteria for receiving the income support allotments are anyway extremely tough “and have been so for more than 50 years.
“We’re talking about the most poverty stricken sections of the haredi sector,” he said. “Furthermore, just as the state pays and contributes toward secular culture, haredim also demand financial support for the study of Torah in the Jewish state.”
Shahar Ilan, vice president of Hiddush, welcomed the decision, saying that a series of government studies established that the income support allotments directly damage the state’s efforts to get kollel students into the workforce.
“This allotment causes severe damage to economy, because thousands of people will never go to the work. This costs the economy billions,” Ilan said.
Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post
Duh. If someone wants to sit and learn they need to PERSONALLY find a Zevulun to support them. If they can’t (which will likely be because they’re not sincere) then they must work like the rest of us
this is what our dear leader rabbis created a mass of uneducated torah learners that cannot go out into the real world and make a decent living for themselfs.
I feel sad seeing all of the comments about the Torah-learners here on VIN. Nobody seems to have a favorable view about helping them to learn! Not from the secular Jews, nor the orthodox it seems! I’m confused!
I listen to a LOT of lectures from Rabbis that many of you are probably familiar with & they are all very saddened by how these students are dealt with by their own community!
So how is it, that even after all of your Rabbis & teachers have praised the learning of the Torah to all of you, you could be so against the students?! And isn’t Israel is the only place on Earth (I believe-but correct me if I’m wrong) where the gov’t will actually *help* a person to learn Torah?! I think it’s magnificent!
Can you imagine what this world would be like if there weren’t these kollels?! If there wasn’t this group of serious Torah students there in the Holy Land, helping to keep Israel, well… “Jewish” (lol), and quite frankly, helping to reginerate the whole world, too!
But these students are mercilessly taunted & called “parasites” or “lazy”! Doesn’t the gov’t penalize them if they work?!
So why not cut them some slack?!
Why attack them for it?!
I sincerely don’t get it.
Someone who takes up this lifestyle does not do it for the love of money but for the love of Judaism. I don’t think people who dedicate their lives and sacrifice themselves for studying Torah should be punished in this way,” Brilant said.
they are not being punished , they will denied a benefit
#3- We are not being anti-Kollel. We are not being anti-learning Torah. What we are saying is that there are many who chose to sit in kollel without needing an entrance test or prove worth/skills/abilities. Rather, it has become expected that every boy be a kollel youngerman. We praise what was done in Europe and all those large yeshivos. We tell our children to look back at what we had and emulate it here. When you look historically, however, it was not how it is today. Most men learned a trade. Only a few, maybe one or two in each small town, who were the best and brightest were supported by the rest of the community. There is no accountability today- some work off the books. Some don’t show up to learn. Some are “seat warmers”. Yes, there are those that are real learners but when so much fraud takes place, how can we see them? The government just sees the fraud and wants to stop it.
The stupidity in here is amazing.
First, people studying to be rabbis, are also going out into the workforce, yes that’s right, the workforce. Whether they become a shiur rebbe, a rabbi of a shul, rabbi of a city, a dayan, a principal, a rosh yeshiva, they ARE going out to work eventually.
Second, I must agree that the claims of inequality are correct. While religious Jews receive altogether about 100 million shekel a year, the students and universities receive more than 10 fold. Inequality. So it’s rather funny that in order to pass the Kollel stipend, they had to add another 50 million shekel to the secular students, or about half of the whole kollel stipend.
Third, to what Shahar “the retard” Ilan says in the article, that thousands will never go to work and cost the economy “billions”,
a) not every university student will go to work
b) take the billions he talks about (say 5 billion) and divide it by the thousands (say 5 thousand) apparently each chareidi is causing the economy a 1 million dollar by not going to work each year. Smart alec.
“Students eligible for this stipend are those who are married with three or more children and whose total monthly income is less than NIS 1,200. “
Even if they opened up this stipend to university students…how many do you think would meet these criteria?
The fact that this has been ongoing for 50 years is the problem. It has created two generations of dependence and limited skills. What has evolved is actually a disincentive for people to have ambition to be self-sufficient. They were never given the tools to do so, because that would be heretical philosophically, politically, and socially.
The Kollel lifestyle is meant for 5% of the entire Klal Yisrael, not 95% of the Chareidi community. If that was indeed the case, both frye and frum would have tolerance for this and be willing to support.