Now that the national budget has been approved for 2007, final alterations and improvements can be added without fear of upsetting the coalition partners. Specifically, Prime Minister Olmert has agreed to restore the 47 million shekels that were cut from the religious-Zionist schools and yeshivot last year, and add another 13 million as well.



Olmert is directly involved in the budgeting of the boys' yeshivot and girls' ulpanot because the Prime Minister's Office has taken over many of the projects previously run by the now-defunct Ministry of Religious Affairs.



The budget breakthrough occurred at the funeral of former Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek this past Thursday. A senior official in the religious-Zionist education network says that Cabinet Secretary Yisrael Maimon and Olmert's aide Oved Yechezkel asked to speak with the official at the funeral.



The official told Arutz-7's Itzik Wolf that Olmert had become very upset upon learning that over 100,000 students had remained home this past Dec. 24 in protest of the fiscal threat hanging over their schools. Olmert rebuked his aides, the official quoted them as saying, asking, "How could you have allowed such a thing to happen?"



Many heads of yeshivot and ulpanot said that at the current rate of government budgeting, their schools would not be able to continue operating and would have to fold.



Yechezkel offered to restore 45 million shekels to the budget for religious-Zionist education. Though this would have raised the total allocations to nearly 200 million shekels, the representative of the educational system said he could not accept such a paltry amount. He reminded Yechezkel that the institutions had received 280 million shekels just four years ago, and that the sum had constantly dropped since then.



Yechezkel said that he could not offer more than 45 million shekels and excused himself from the conversation. He returned a short while later saying another 15 million shekels had been added to the offer. He also said that from now on the monies would be transferred directly from the Education Ministry and not the Prime Minister's Office.



The final agreement is expected to be signed today (Monday), between the Prime Minister's Office and the Religious-Zionist Education Administration.



MKs representing the religious-Zionist sector had told Arutz-7 last week that they were optimistic that funding would be found for the schools after the coalition succeeded in passing the national budget with a minimum of inter-coalition opposition.



MK Zevulun Orlev (National Religious Party), participating at the sit-in held outside the government complex on the day of the strike, said at the time, "The government is holding the budget and our children as political hostages just because we're in the opposition. The parents already pay astronomical sums, and cannot pay more."



"This political persecution is liable to destroy our schools," Orlev said, "even though our graduates are the backbone of Israeli society. The government had better wake up before it cuts off the branch on which the State sits."