Responding to media uproar over "thousands of yeshiva students" being permitted to enter the country, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein has clarified the facts, adding that he is "sick of this ... I've had it until here with the hatred for haredim."
Edelstein pointed out what others have so far either been unaware of, or chosen to ignore - that most of the students given permission to enter the country under the new plan are not even haredi.
"The plan applies to Masa ... and Naaleh, for thousands of high-school students, university students, [and those] in hesder yeshivas," he told Channel 12 News. Haredim "are only a portion of the thousands entering Israel ... It's a shame that I don't have my phone here to show you the blessings I received from the chairman of the Jewish Agency, from Naaleh - 'Thanks so much, you saved Zionism,'" he added.
"The next day I open the newspaper and see a giant headline: '17,000 avreichim [married yeshiva students] coming to Israel,'" Edelstein said. “I’m sick of this, I simply have had it. It’s anti-Semitism. The people who write it know it better than you or me – they do these things deliberately."