Tel-Chai Nation

Well isn't this just sad:

The senior rabbinic leadership of the Tekuma Party – a constituent of the Bayit Yehudi Knesset faction – has issued a letter to the party’s leaders calling on them not to agree to the imposition of core curriculum subjects in haredi schools and not to expand the electoral committee for selecting the chief rabbis.

Tekuma represents the more conservative element – both religiously and politically – of the national-religious political spectrum. The party is represented in Bayit Yehudi by MKs Uri Ariel, Eli Ben-Dahan, Zvulun Kalfa and Orit Struck.

According to a draft of the Economic Arrangements Law – a government bill presented alongside the budget – haredi schools will be hit with swinging cuts in funding if they do not dedicate a requisite number of hours to core curriculum subjects such as math and English.

The large majority of haredi schools teach very limited amounts of secular studies to pupils.

The four Tekuma rabbis – Dov Lior, Haim Steiner, Iser Kalonski, and David Hai HaCohen – took exception to the proposals in the arrangements law, saying that the study of Torah is a “source of life and oxygen for the existence of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.”

The rabbis said that everything should be done to strengthen Torah study in quantity and quality and added that they were calling on the Bayit Yehudi MKs to oppose the imposition of teaching core curriculum subjects in “Torah institutions.”

What is this? Do they realize how stupid they're being to oppose teaching Haredi students skills with which to better themselves in society like math? Nobody's saying they can't teach Torah, they just want them to add lessons equally vital alongside the Torah studies, is all. This exposes a weakness in the Bayit Yehudi party's leadership that shouldn't be taken lightly.

And here some people thought this party understood the importance of working to better the country.

Labels: haredi corruption, Israel, Judaism, Knesset