Something To Laugh At

Unless you are Yair Lapid, looking back at the failure of your overreach.

Many people, even inside the charedi world, secretly hoped that Yair Lapid’s insistence upon addressing the issue of charedi un- and under-employment would provide the impetus that was not coming from within. Those hopes quickly soured when he demonstrated too much naked hostility to the community, and too little understanding of what could and could not work (no pun intended).

Some apologists for Israeli charedim argued that change, albeit slow, was already upon the community, with more and more people looking for vocational and academic training to support their families. They pointed to the programs and institutions sprouting all over the charedi landscape. Those, they said, would flourish, unless the community would perceive an organized attack on its principles, in which case it would unite in resistance and backlash. While much of Lapid’s program was positive and provided positive and healthy impetus for change, he went too far by pushing for criminalization of draft offenses. He also made some statements that went beyond the goal of getting charedim into the work place, but spoke of integrating charedim within the rest of society by changing their values. Now it is conceivable that some readers of Cross-Currents might also like to tweak a value or two of Israeli charedi society, but they wouldn’t be gauche enough to scream it from the rooftops, which they know is an invitation for movement in the opposite direction.

We have seen claims and counterclaims as to whether the backlash to Lapid and Company’s heavy-handed tactics suppressed charedi enrollment in academic programs and in IDF entlistment. I will let readers try to sort out the facts. The YouTube above, however, provides strong evidence that market for vocational preparation in the charedi community is significant. It is not a spoof, as I first thought. I confirmed this with the folks at Machon Lev, another name for the venerable Jerusalem College of Technology, which has been a trailblazer in providing a host of programs specifically tailored to the needs of charedi men and women.

Machon Lev has an enviable history of enriching Israeli life with patents and people. It does not have a line-item in its budget for humor. The video you watched is part of a serious marketing campaign, and you always market to a need. If there were billboards in Monroe, Hugo Boss wouldn’t advertise there. If the very smart people at Machon Lev did not believe that the video’s message would resonate with a large number of internet-connected charedi viewers, they would not have made it. They understood that many would understand that a ben Torah who picked up a degree without compromising his principles or his passion for limud Torah would be seen by many not as a traitor to the cause, but as a desirable commodity. At least to prospective fathers-in-law.

Yair Lapid thought he could produce a tidal wave of defection from charedi life by breaking the walls of the dam. He failed. But what remained in place was not an irksome drip, but a steady stream of young charedim willing and able to seek training and employment, if given the opportunity.

[Borsalino tip to reader Surie Ackerman]

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23 Responses

  1. Menachem Lipkin says:

    It’s unfortunate that you had to take something so positive and, uncharacteristically, infuse it with negativity by jumping on the bash Lapid bandwagon. Even your short blurb is internally inconsistent. While on the one hand you twice definitively refer to Lapid’s “failure”, you nevertheless candidly admit that “We have seen claims and counterclaims as to whether the backlash to Lapid and Company’s heavy-handed tactics suppressed charedi enrollment in academic programs and in IDF entlistment. I will let readers try to sort out the facts.” And, indeed, it’s a complex issue as the full effect of what, I believe, is an excellent, very pro-Chareidi plan would have needed years to play out in order to “factually” assess its success. There are certainly early signs that Yesh Atid’s, what I prefer to call, Chareidi Jobs Bill is having a positive effect. It would be criminal and tragic if the coming elections allowed short-sighted populist politicians to undo this progress and return things to an untenable status quo.

    [YA – I thought I was clear when I criticized Lapid’s overreach – not his primary goal. I added a few lines to the piece to make that clearer.]

  2. Yoni says:

    I’m not laughing. That is beautiful.

  3. yehudis says:

    yes, yes, and we have a 15 year old who has just entered a combined Torah/chol program geared toward chassidic boys. we’ll see who will be open minded enough to think that he is a good prospect when the time comes!
    fortunately, only Hakadosh Boruch Hu is mezaveg zivugim, so we’ll just leave it up to Him…

  4. marc says:

    A ben torah with a degree in the US is in high regard. I am nit sure that holds in charedi Israel. This past weeks comments by MK gafni confirm.

  5. DF says:

    “Yair Lapid thought he could produce a tidal wave of defection from charedi life by breaking the walls of the dam.”

    He thought no such thing, and really, I’m surprised to see you falling for the cheap demagoguery of his political competition. What Lapid wanted was nothing more than what everybody wants, and what Jonathan Rosenblum writes about on a regular basis – getting charedim into the economy. I’m sure he knew he would be made into a Haman by Charedi politicians, merely for proposing it. But he probably thought more sophisticated men would understand the difficult task he’s trying to do. Anybody – such as Rosenblum – can write articles, but he’s trying to make it a reality, which takes at least some measure of teeth and legislation. [The libertarian free market approach has not worked, because the charedim keep getting propped up via American charity.]

    And you say “he failed.” Really? Then how come we didn’t see this Machon Lev commercial before he came on the scene? One doesn’t have to actually pass legislation to achieve goals. Often the mere threat of it, and the uncertainly it creates, is enough to accomplish the same goal.

    [YA – He didn’t in the key provisions of the program he pushed. He DID in some unfortunate statements that were guaranteed to damage the program! I added a few lines to the piece to reflect what I thought I had made clear. I was criticizing the overreach in some of what he said and did – not the idea of responsibly opening up doors of opportunity for the growing charedi population that is looking for it.]

  6. js36 says:

    I’ll only take the changes in the Chareidi approach to education and vocational training seriously when I hear it come from the top, whether it be the gedolim or hareidi politicians. I don’t recall reading or hearing any respectable gadol in the Chareidi world in Eretz Yisroel openly advocate widespread vocational training that can provide an income to support a large family(i.e. doctor, lawyer, accountant). At the most, I’ve heard charedi leaders say it should be the few yeshiva dropouts that hang out on the streets but nobody advocates the society as a whole should have this kind of training. I think there is widespread support amongst many Chareidim to improve their lot and I think that the vocational programs will continue to grow, but until the leadership openly advocates working for a living a respectable, l’chatchila life pursuit for the 80% who should not be learning full time, the changes will not solve the greater financial crisis in the community.

  7. Torlev says:

    “Unless you are Yair Lapid, looking back at the failure of your overreach.”
    “Those hopes quickly soured when he demonstrated too much naked hostility to the community”
    “He DID in some unfortunate statements that were guaranteed to damage the program!”

    R’ Yitzchock- I deeply admire all you have strived to achieve at Cross- Currents. May Hashem allow to continue your wonderful work for many years in good health and happiness. My single area of disappointment with you is (what I believe to be) your (surely unintentional) inaccurate statements and sometimes snide tone regarding Lapid. It seems almost as if you have to join the bandwagon on this to maintain your chareidi credibility. I may have missed something, but following closely over the past couple of years, I have yet to hear a statement from him displaying “naked hostility.” I know that you are an ish-emess, so please do your research. Merely subjecting chareidim to the same draft- dodging criminal sanctions as the general Israeli population and those of any civilized country with a compulsory draft is certainly not proof-positive of hate or hostility. (And in all honesty, after all of the vulgar demonization that he has encountered coming out of the chareidi world, (repeatedly calling him Haman, publically hanging him in effigy and burning his photos) if he did utter something of which I am not aware, there is certainly ample grounds for accepting this as a very normal human reaction. After all, he is not the Chofetz Chaim.)

    [YA – Thank you. Like others, I started off with great expectations about him. The statements, however, did come – ill-advisedly. I will try BEH to retrieve them. I agree that subjecting the charedi community to the same criminal sanctions as everyone else is not inherently unfair – but it was a counterproductive provocation that played to his street. I can’t share the names, but I have secular Israeli friends who were just as disappointed. Bending over backwards in order to ease the way for more charedim was seen as legal by the Supreme Court (and I confirmed this in a personal conversation with an ex-member of the court), so I don’t buy the argument that he had to ask for criminalization to ensure that his bill would not be struck down. I bear no animus towards him, and still hope that he can come around.]

    [Addendum 2/9. I looked back at notes and the comments of others. You are correct in one regard, although I am not sure that it makes any difference. I did not find statements per se that showed naked hostility. I think a few of Shai Piron’s statements come close (or surpass it), and YL can’t distance himself from Piron. His actions, however, do support a diagnosis of something akin to naked hostility, or naked incompetence. I will point to two areas. One, is pushing for criminalization, against the advice of even a leftist on the Peri Committee. Another is the draconian cuts to the haredi sector which made it impossible for the people who were open to receive job training to get it. Having to gather the straw to make the bricks, there was no way people hard-hit by these measures could take advantage of the programs that were being developed for them. While some have argued that all sectors sustained slashed allocations (and there were some pointed exceptions, outside of the haredi world), this was perhaps justifiable in the short run, but suicidal in the bigger picture. The consequences to the economy will be far more severe if more haredim do not enter the job market.]

  8. Selah L says:

    I loved it, it’s great!

  9. Raymond says:

    I continue to be appalled by the fact that apparently many Chareidim think that they are somehow too holy to work for a living. To me, such an attitude is worthy of shame, not pride. I seem to recall that people who were spiritually light years above them, from Abraham to Moses to the men of the Talmud to Rashi to the Rambam to the Ramchal, did not think it beneath their dignity to work for a living. I have nothing against some wealthy person voluntarily funding some promising young Torah scholar(s), but to force everybody to do so, which is really what taxes are, is simply abhorrent.

  10. Doron Beckerman says:

    Rabbi Adlerstein, you don’t need to look very far. These words might ring a bell:

    But I stressed in the strongest terms how counterproductive Yair Lapid’s actions had been after unveiling his program for charedi participation in army and other service. Like others here in the US who have been in contact with the government, I underscored the damage that had been done to existing programs by a diabolic pincers movement: strengthening the position of the most extreme rejectionists in the charedi world by giving the impression of a holy war being waged against them; shooting charedim who wanted to enter the workforce in the kneecaps by drastic cuts in the stipends for children, curtailing the possibility of parents taking advantage of training programs and opportunities.

    Here’s what Bennett, erstwhile bro, had to say recently:

    “לקח לי חודשים ארוכים לגלות שללפיד יש רצון להתנכל על כל סעיף וסעיף לחרדים”, אמר בנט והוסיף: “חשבתי בתחילה שהכוונות שלו באות ממקום טוב, אבל טעיתי”,

    “החרדים ספגו פגיעה קשה, כשגיליתי שמטרת לפיד להתנכל לחרדים ניסיתי למזער נזקים.

    His 0% VAT bill – at the cost of 3 billion shekels – was a direct shot at Charedim. It would not help any Charedi who went to work, because he hadn’t served in the IDF – entirely legally! He knew very well it could not pass legal muster but he did it anyway – just to make his point.

    His ministry funded summer camp for anyone and everyone – including children of illegal Sudanese workers – but not for Charedim.

    He cut hundreds of millions of shekels from the Yeshivot – but funded heterodox Yeshivot to the tune of 15 million – and that’s just the beginning, promises Shai Piron.

    He refused to okay ANY new Charedi non-profits – and when Gafni let the press know about it, he got all upset and threatened to revoke non-profit status from ALL Charedi organizations.

    It is NOT Charedi apologists, Rabbi Adlerstein. It is YOU, cited above, along with Shaul Amsterdamsky from Calcalist magazine, who had it exactly right:

    ייקח זמן עד שאפשר יהיה לבחון אם ההשראה שהמלים של לפיד מבקשות לעורר נעוצה בקרקע המציאות. בינתיים, בחוק ההסדרים שהתחיל אתמול לדלוף, הכל נראה פחות או יותר כמו בעבר, בתוספת טיווח ישיר של המגזר החרדי. קיצוץ תקציבים למערכת החינוך החרדית, אלא אם יסכימו ראשיה להכניס אל בין כתליה את לימודי החול, וקיצוץ בהטבות שהם מקבלים כמו הנחות בארנונה וסבסוד מעונות לילדים.

    הצעדים האלה מנסים להתמודד עם אחת מהבעיות הקשות ביותר שמאיימות על החברה הישראלית בעשורים הקרובים – השינויים הדמוגרפיים שמקטינים מאוד את חלקו היחסי של מעמד הביניים העובד. הדרך של לפיד להתמודד עם האיום הזה הוא על ידי הכרזת מלחמה, לא על ידי הושטת היד לחרדים.

    אלא שבאופן אירוני הכרזת המלחמה על המגזר החרדי באה בתום ארבע שנים של שינוי שקט שהתחולל במגזר. מתוך מצוקה כלכלית איומה שהתחילה ברחוב החרדי עם פרוץ המשבר הכלכלי, והגיעה לשיא בגלל עליית מחירי הדיור, החלו עוד ועוד חרדים – נשים וגברים – לרכוש השכלה, ואפילו לעבוד.

    את השינוי הזה עודדה הממשלה בשקט, דרך תמיכה תקציבית בגופים לא ממשלתיים, שקידמו פרויקטים של מימון השכלה וסיוע במציאת עבודה לחרדים. ודווקא אז, כשהרחוב החרדי התחיל לאט להבין שהעסקנים החרדיים, הפוליטיקאים, לא באמת דאגו לו לאורך השנים, דווקא אז הגיעו גזרות לפיד.

    וכך, באבחה אחת, הצליח לפיד לחזק מחדש את העסקנים החרדיים. אתם רואים, הם אומרים לרחוב החרדי, החילונים רק רוצים שתבחרו – להתחלן או להיות עניים. אם סופו של המהלך הזה יהיה בכך שהרחוב החרדי יסוג מהתובנות שנאלץ לרכוש בשנים האחרונות, אזי דרך המלחמה של לפיד לא תצמיח שום תועלת.

  11. Torlev says:

    “I agree that subjecting the charedi community to the same criminal sanctions as everyone else is not inherently unfair – but it was a counterproductive provocation that played to his street.”
    Perhaps, but the unfortunate reality is that every politician must play to the constituents that keep him in office. Litzman, Gafne, and Eichler certainly do more than their fair share. I painfully recall the shame that I felt as a frum yid when a lawmaker with a long white beard handcuffed himself to the knessset microphone necessitating very publically prolonged efforts at the podium in order to extricate him. How damaging that epic chillul hashem must have been in the eyes of the public! Did/would you use equally snide tones towards him at his colleagues for playing to their street? Why the double-standard towards Lapid?
    ” I will try BEH to retrieve them.”
    Thanks very much. If you do manage to find something,(and I doubt that you will) please be sure to consider dates and context, and be fair and emmessdig in presenting them as truly demonstrative of “naked hostility”.

  12. Torlev says:

    “but it was a counterproductive provocation that played to his street.”
    Please note- Although in my last comment I did acknowledge the possibility that Mr. Lapid was indeed “playing to his street”, I am not agreeing with the usage of the loaded term “provocation” (rather than a more neutral term such as “measure”)in describing his advocating of a position (draft criminal sanctions) that you admit is “not inherently unfair”. (BTW, I would simply have said “perfectly fair”- why bother with the double-negative? Let’s not be reluctant to clearly express the truth. Don’t mean to nit-pick, but I really think that in this instance and context the nuance is telling.)

  13. Shades of Gray says:

    “I can’t share the names, but I have secular Israeli friends who were just as disappointed.”

    R. Donniel Hartman of the Shalom Hartman Institute and Labor’s Erel Margalit are not Charedi, but were critical of the legistlation in the conversation below with Gary Rosenblatt(Jewish Week editorial 06/05/13):

    “Rabbi Donniel Hartman, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute here, also opposes legislation that would jail haredim who do not sign up for national service or the army. “The fundamental mistake” the Knesset is making is not learning the lesson that “you can’t legislate social change,” he asserted during a conversation this week.He noted that haredim are no longer anti-Zionist but rather have become “acculturated Zionists,” more a part of modernity and willing to participate in the system…Rather, the rabbi says, Lapid, as finance minister, has turned public anger toward the haredim as a means of deflecting it from his highly unpopular proposed budget cuts.Rabbi Hartman says successive Israeli governments, starting with David Ben-Gurion, created the problem by instituting the deferments for haredi yeshiva students — he thought their numbers would remain small — and have allowed haredi rabbinic leaders to “infantilize” their constituency, making them dependent on a society that views them with contempt.

    “It’s a shame,” he said. Further, “it’s just not the Jewish way, which is to treat fellow Jews more gently. We’re violating the core principles of Zionism. Plus, it’s ineffective.”

    Erel Margalit, the highly successful venture capitalist and new member of Knesset from Labor, agrees. He says the haredim are “being used as a punching bag, as a political tool, in a way that delegitimizes them.”

    In an interview at the Knesset this week, he said that for the last seven years as a businessman/philanthropist, he helped integrate young haredim into the work force in the preliminary high-tech sector. “But this [proposed legislation on national and army service] stops the progress we’ve made on the ground…”

  14. Torlev says:

    “Rabbi Adlerstein, you don’t need to look very far. These words might ring a bell:”

    “But I stressed in the strongest terms how counterproductive Yair Lapid’s actions…”

    “R. Donniel Hartman of the Shalom Hartman Institute and Labor’s Erel Margalit are not Charedi, but were critical of the legistlation in the conversation below with Gary Rosenblatt(Jewish Week editorial 06/05/13):”

    Doron, Shades of Grey-

    I asked for statements from Mr. Lapid- not his policies (which everyone knows drastically cut chareidi subsidies), and not statements made about him by others.

    While if one wishes, one could certainly argue that his chareidi-directed budget cutting was motivated by hostility, the fact remains that without these drastic, painful disincentive measures, (coupled with the chareidi- specific, generous educational opportunities, which Lapid was indeed funding),the deeply ingrained, and economically unsustainable, 20-30 year accelerating beeline that Israel is facing in reaching the national economic catastrophe of having an gainfully unemployable majority population will inevitably continue. Hartman and Margalit’s opinions notwithstanding, I believe that many reasonable people will readily agree that there is simply no getting around the implementation of measures with teeth to start driving the chareidi public to system-change. Lapid was carrying out his responsibility as a finance minister addressing a massively serious economic problem in what is very arguably the only way possible. His policies can not at all be considered proof-positive of inherent hatred or hostility.
    A number of years ago, a friend of mine asked a very honest, prominent, Chareidi Rosh Kollel in America for the economic “cheshbon” behind our own USA chareidi growing trend of disregard for secular elementary/high school secular education, coupled with default kollel for the masses. How could it continue indefinitely without bringing many families to fiscal ruin? He responded with the following words: “We are banking on Moshiach.” One can not expect this to become Israel’s response to the economic suicide that is now looming in the not too distant future. (I am admittedly speculating, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if even after these cuts, ironically the “terrible Medina” will still have the distinction of being the single greatest supporter of Torah in the history of the world.)

    Let me be clear: I eagerly await chareidi-directed, hate-laden quotations from Mr. Lapid.

  15. Bob Miller says:

    What do you call someone who puts out a reasonable-sounding statement of principles and then follows up by trying to sabotage the beneficiary group in every way possible?

  16. Torlev says:

    Let me help you a bit with your research:
    I happen to recall two instances that made wide chareidi press as examples of Mr. Lapid’s supposed obnoxious attitude for chareidim. The first came during what I believe was his very first address to the Knesset as finance minister. After constant, ongoing heckling from Charedi lawmakers, (which he simply ignored for quite some time,) he finally responded to the now-minority chareidim with something to the effect of “you will no longer tell us what to do”. This response was certainly not commensurate to the heckling he had endured and to me was not an indicator of hostility- it was simply expected human behavior.

    The second was when he was asked to comment on the (supposed) “million man” atzeres tefillah. At that time, he said something to the effect that “if they were all not in yeshiva, they wouldn’t have had the time on their hands to attend the atzeres”. While the Yated at the time prominently featured this quote, I don’t think that the stating of this truth broke any bounds of impropriety. It certainly was a great deal milder than all of the constant rhetoric and vilification that by that time he had been subjected to from the general chareidi public and it’s politicians. As I said before- he is not the Chofetz Chaim!

  17. L. Oberstein says:

    Wow! Fo s long, I did not realize that you really agree with me,which is amazing. On a regular basis I associate with chareidi scholars. One explained to me that the difference is “tunnel vision” and being able to think beyond platitudes. I think if people like you and Jonathan and others say out loud what you sort of hint at ,either you will be ostracized or you might make a dent. Unfortunately, until the leaders actually lead adn openly advocate real change, it will be slow. Does anyone realize that even herfe in the US, the Agudah still cannot have a web site because the Gedolim want to stop the infiltration of the Internet? This prevents yeshivos that want to be considered in the parsha from having a web site. This is in this country? I have been told over and over that people who thibnk like me (and you) are passe, that the mainstream of the Agudah world has shifted. Today they care much more about what Satmar and lakewood will say because they have numbers and money. Moderate yeshivish is out of style.This is why today none of them will print a fenale’s picture including yeshivos that did it up to a few years ago. As far as Israel, there have to been jobs available that pay a living wage. Israel has a lot of have’s and even more have-not’s . A nurse earns 1,000 shekels a month, in this country she would earn a living wage.Who can live on that? Train people but create jobs.
    A caterer told me that today he has two jobs, a large Siyum Hashas by baalebos friend of mine and a huge Suprbowl Party. Some of our rabbis realize that there are lots of normal people who are meshugah over football and that it is not bad. Others proclaim that it is asur and that it is a shanda to advertise “Supebowl Specials”> My shul has a father son learning prior to the game so that the parentes and children can fulfill both (mekayaeim shenayhem).

  18. L. Oberstein says:

    A fellow came up to me after davening and told me a “joke” . A little boy came home from cheder and asked his father a question. “We learned about Yissocher and Zevulun today. Why is Zevulun supporting Yissoecher, why isn’t Yissocher’s wife supporting him.?”
    I think that in Kiryat Sefer and many other areas, this would describe reality.

    [YA – The joke may be on us. In most Orthodox communities in the US that are blessed with more children than the national average, and day school tuitions, per child, exceed the cost of a new car, we have our own version. It goes, “Why aren’t Yissocher’s wife, Zevulun, and Zevulun’s wife all taking multiple jobs to support Yissocher?”

  19. Menachem Lipkin says:

    Rabbi Adlerstein, this why it would have been better to let the video stand on its own. You did clearly say that it’s for the readers to sort out the facts. I understand that “facts” can be spun to support this or that world view. But let’s at least get the facts straight. I emailed Rabbi Beckerman’s 4 bullets to Rabbi Lipman. Below are his responses:

    His 0% VAT bill – at the cost of 3 billion shekels – was a direct shot at Charedim. It would not help any Charedi who went to work, because he hadn’t served in the IDF – entirely legally! He knew very well it could not pass legal muster but he did it anyway – just to make his point.

    Of course we planned on passing the law and it even passed the government and a first reading in the Knesset. People around the Prime Minister said he had to stop it because it would have been “ten times the success of Kachlon and cell phones” (their words, not mine). Any chareidi who served in the army would get the benefit and ALL chareidim even if they didn’t serve could get the benefit for an apartment up to one million shekel. Moshe Gafni himself stood up and said he is against the law even though it will actually help chareidim.

    His ministry funded summer camp for anyone and everyone – including children of illegal Sudanese workers – but not for Charedim.

    The summer camps were special programs directed by the education ministry to supplement the regular curriculum. Any chareidi school that would accept those programs was welcome to have them. Of course, they did not want education ministry programs. They simply wanted the money to run regular school and that is not what it was for.

    He cut hundreds of millions of shekels from the Yeshivot – but funded heterodox Yeshivot to the tune of 15 million – and that’s just the beginning, promises Shai Piron.

    We cut the money from yeshivas and used that money for training programs for them to get jobs. One rabbi we met with said that as much as 60 percent of the guys in yeshiva and kollel don’t belong there. So, instead of funding them to stay there, we helped them leave and find work. There is a 300 percent increase in chareidim seeking government help to find work over the last year and eight months and my projects in the taskforce to help chareidim find work receive an average of 500 resumes per month from chareidim looking for work.

    He refused to okay ANY new Charedi non-profits – and when Gafni let the press know about it, he got all upset and threatened to revoke non-profit status from ALL Charedi organizations.

    This is the most absurd. When Yair came into office he said that it was corrupt that the minister approves the amutot because it makes it political. So he put a freeze on all approvals – chareidi and not chareidi – and appointed a professional, non political committee to study the requests and make the approvals. The committee was established and we, in he finance commitee, approved all of their approvals – most of which were chareidi!!!

    Rabbi Beckerman, you live a 5 minute drive from Rabbi Lipman. I’ve suggested this before… hop in your car and talk to the guy. Even people who are diametrically opposed to the politics of Yesh Atid walk away impressed with his integrity (and that of the party) and a more nuanced understanding of what’s really going on.

  20. Doron Beckerman says:

    People around the Prime Minister said he had to stop it because it would have been “ten times the success of Kachlon and cell phones” (their words, not mine).

    This need not be a secret, but an explosive media item that would go a long way to fulfilling Lapid’s promise of making sure that it would be anyone by Bibi this time around! Either name names, or find me two decent economic experts or columnists that said that the VAT program would help the economy. Meanwhile, the chief economist in the ministry quit over it because it was bad for the economy.

    Any chareidi who served in the army would get the benefit and ALL chareidim even if they didn’t serve could get the benefit for an apartment up to one million shekel. Moshe Gafni himself stood up and said he is against the law even though it will actually help chareidim.

    This is emphatically NOT Lapid’s proposal but the best he could somehow squeeze through the finance committee after the fight put up by Ariel, Slomiansky, and the Charedim!

    The summer camps were special programs directed by the education ministry to supplement the regular curriculum. Any chareidi school that would accept those programs was welcome to have them. Of course, they did not want education ministry programs. They simply wanted the money to run regular school and that is not what it was for

    I see. Anything in those programs you think Charedim might find objectionable – and perhaps may have been tailored as such? There seems to be a heavy emphasis on האחר הוא אני, which Shai Piron stressed as a program which, among other things, fosters acceptance of homosexuals. While I’m on the subject and I have MK Lipman’s ear, how does he feel about the 140% increase in public funding of the gay youth club? Or the 15 million shekels (and that’s just the beginning!) for heterodox institutes of Torah study? Or of transgender operations and transition housing? Full recognition of gay marriage? Gay couple adoption? All open on Yesh Atid’s agenda.

    We cut the money from yeshivas and used that money for training programs for them to get jobs. One rabbi we met with said that as much as 60 percent of the guys in yeshiva and kollel don’t belong there.

    Could I please have evidence of 350 million shekels spent on training programs for Charedim. Also, I know people who say only 400 a year belong there and other who say 4% don’t belong there. Why does this nameless Rabbi’s opinion matter?

    So, instead of funding them to stay there, we helped them leave and find work. There is a 300 percent increase in chareidim seeking government help to find work over the last year and eight months

    Numbers please. Not talking points. Also, how many of those come from the group of 22-28 year olds exempted from the army?

    and my projects in the taskforce to help chareidim find work receive an average of 500 resumes per month from chareidim looking for work.

    Oddly missing are success rates. And while they train, seek jobs, and face the discrimination (such as that apparently exhibited by the Finance Ministry which failed to hire even one Charedi in their job drive), you cut their money and make sure the mothers can’t go to work because they don’t get the meonot yom benefit (unless Bennett goes to bat for them).

    This is the most absurd…

    Was there or was there not a point at which no Charedi amutot appeared on a list for approval, but others did?

  21. Shades of Gray says:

    “Does anyone realize that even herfe in the US, the Agudah still cannot have a web site because the Gedolim want to stop the infiltration of the Internet?”

    FWIW, the Lefkowitz Leadership Initiative, a division of Agudath Israel of America has a website. On the top of the page it says, “LLI Encourages our Visitors to Heed the Words of our Gedolim with Regard to Internet Use”.

  22. Menachem Lipkin says:

    Rabbi Beckerman, like I said… 5 minutes. Instead of your constant, often fact-challenged, attacks. Go talk to the guy.

  23. Doron Beckerman says:

    Fine. You arrange the meeting for after Rosh Chodesh Nissan, and we’ll see who’s fact-challenged.

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