United Torah Judaism MK Menachem Eliezer Moses directed his ire at Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid and former Education Minister Shai Piron (also from Yesh Atid), in the Knesset plenum today.
In a debate on the proposal to repeal the Core Curriculum law which made state funding dependent on haredi schools teaching basic secular subjects, MK Moses addressed the Yesh Lapid representatives, saying sarcastically: "I just want to wipe the tears away with a handkerchief when I think of your great concern about secular studies for haredi children.
We saw how much you cared about our children when you were in the government. We saw it when you issued decrees against us."
MK Moses outlined the damage, as he sees it, done to haredi children during the rule of the previous government, when Yesh Atid was part of the coalition. "You damaged haredi schools' ability to help students with learning disabilities, you cut funding for additional teachers, and you abolished the Nahari law, resulting in water and electric bills from schools being levied on the parents.
"You said that you provided funding for summer camps for all, equally. When I asked then Education Minister Piron about haredi students he dismissively answered: 'Let them move to state funded schools.'"
Regarding the previous law requiring haredi schools to teach the Core Curriculum, passed by Lapid and Piron's initiative, he said: "You knew that it was hopeless, which is why you postponed its implementation to 2018. You persecuted us. All you wanted was to make us broke and starve Jewish children under the guise of integrating them into the workforce."
Moses then pointed to unemployment statistics to make his point. "You preached haredi integration into the workforce. At that time there were 250,000 people looking for work. Did you want to add another 80,000 unemployed to that? Would that have calmed you down? It's time to shatter the stigma that haredim don't work.
"Go out and look at haredi areas. People are working in every field and making a living. Commerce is thriving. But you just can't take the fact that there are those among us who sit and study Torah."
MK Moses made sure to emphasize that contrary to Yesh Atid's bombastic rhetoric, the Core Curriculum law now in the process of being repealed would only have affected 1.8% of students in the education system. "You said a million children. Where'd you get that number from? It's a good thing that Yair Lapid found it prudent to apologize for the misleading information publicized by his party."