Rabbi Shai Piron
Rabbi Shai PironIsrael news photo: Flash 90

Hareidi-religious students at the Kiryat Ono college are to receive their degrees in a festive ceremony Sunday.

However, some say the ceremony will be marred by the presence of Education Minister Shai Piron, who is a rabbi and a member of the Yesh Atid party.

A letter sent to the college administration by a group of students stated, “We, students who are receiving degrees next Sunday for our studies in Law and Business Management at the Hareidi Academic Campus Kiryat Ono, wish to express our strong opposition to the participation of the Education Minister, Mr. Shai Piron, in distributing the diplomas.”

“Mr. Piron is fighting the Torah world, and has made it his goal to topple the Torah world and deepen the social rift in this country, instead of acting to increase national unity,” they accused. “In addition, the Education Minister is going after our sons and daughters in an attempt to change their way of life by forcing education that contradicts the path of Torah and Jewish tradition.”

“Due to these facts, we hereby declare that we will not take part or participate in the ceremony of diploma distribution as long as Mr. Piron is taking part,” they concluded.

Yesh Atid has angered many in the hareidi-religious community with its insistence that most hareidi men enlist in the IDF rather than studying Torah full-time, and that hareidi schools teach a “core curriculum” of select secular subjects alongside Torah studies.

The community is also upset over a serious cut to yeshiva budgets proposed by Finance Minister Yair Lapid, the head of Yesh Atid.