Leaders of various religious-Zionist educational bodies arrived at the Knesset on Monday, protesting the draconian cuts to religious-Zionist education.
The issue was at the top of the agenda of the Jewish Home faction party meeting. Participating in the meeting were Rabbi Eitan Ozeri, Director of the Association of Hesder Yeshivot, Eldad Ozeri, Director of the Nationalist Yeshivot Association, and others.
MK Orbach: "This is money that belongs to the religious-Zionist public, and we demand that it be restored to us."
At issue is tens of millions of shekels that have been cut from yeshiva high schools, ulpanot high schools, Torah core groups, medrashot, and hesder and other yeshivot. MK Uri Orbach told INN-TV afterwards, "This is money that belongs to the religious-Zionist public, and we demand that it be restored to us. If the government does not live up to its clear coalition promises on this matter, then we will also be forced to break our coalition agreements."
More Spirit, Less Substance
The threat is more in spirit than in substance, in that the Jewish Home only has three MKs, whose loss would not cost the the coalition its Knesset majority.
Orbach said that just as the national service problem was solved, "the problem of religious-Zionist education must be solved as well – but it can only be done by inserting it into the basis of the budget, and not forcing us to beg for our funding every year. The religious Knesset Members of the Likud must know that we simply cannot go on this way."
Eitan Ozeri said, "We want all the religious MKs, of all parties, to work together to solve this problem. If not, then religious-Zionist parents, who already pay double and triple of what other parents pay for their children's education, will have to pay even more."
The heads of the educational institutions in question sent a letter last week to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, asking him to restore the tens of millions of shekels that were cut from religious-Zionist education.