https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/399488
Speaking at the Knesset plenum, Porush said, "I don't understand what country I'm in, and what year I'm in. As far as I know, I am in the year 2024, in the same country I was in two years ago. In today's country, there is no problem deciding that the family of a person who didn't become a soldier should not be eligible for daycare [discounts]."
Such a person, he stressed, "is not a terrorist - his whole sin is that maybe he hasn't yet enlisted, or that he, as per the rabbis' instructions, is not going to enlist until there is an arrangement ensuring that people will not be able to harm yeshiva students."
As far as I know the difference is that both parents getting the stipend are supposed to be working and the Attorney General decided that learning is not considered working. Interpreting a law doesn't require making a new law. By the way, the US reached the same conclusion when thousands of Americans in Israel claimed work incentive stipends from the US. America decided that's not called work, demanded the money back, and people wanting to keep it had to go through a lengthy process of proving that they were working.
ReplyDeleteBut what does Porush care? All he wants is a good headline.
I looked it up and it's a bit different than what I said.
ReplyDeleteHere is a report from the time:
The state may no longer subsidize daycare for children of full-time yeshiva students whose exemption from IDF service has expired, Deputy Attorney-General Gil Limon ruled on Sunday morning.
The ruling will likely lead to a financial blow to thousands of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) families just weeks before a new school year is set to begin, and Labor Minister Yoav Ben-Tzur (Shas) announced soon afterward that his ministry was holding a series of emergency discussions to examine the issue, which he said would cause “severe harm to families’ financials since thousands of mothers will leave the workforce.”
Limon’s ruling came after a series of legal issues arose following the High Court of Justice’s ruling in June that haredi men were no longer exempt from IDF service, and that yeshivot were no longer eligible to receive state support for men of military age who did not report for IDF service.
What about the haredi community's other benefits?
The court’s ruling did not directly address other financial benefits mainly enjoyed by haredim, subsidized daycare being chiefly among them. However, Limon explained in his letter on Sunday that the ruling pointed out the direct link between the state’s support for yeshiva students and the legality of their exemption from IDF service. Since the exemption no longer applied, the state could therefore no longer provide any benefits to haredim who continued evading the draft, Limon wrote.
Anyway, the point is one of how to interpret a court ruling. So no new legislation is needed.
Why don't hareidi leaders ever show compassion for non hareidi people who serve in the idf, and their families, the financial losses from being away from work, of course not to mention the terrible injuries suffered in the fighting?
ReplyDeleteFor the same reason they refuse to pray for Tzahal or let their kids do bikkur cholim on injured soldiers.
DeleteChareidism require enmity to reinforce the ghetto walls. The Chareidim need to see outsiders as hostile. Now imagine a Chareidi boy goes and meets an injured soldiers, a religious one, and discovers that he isn't an evil monster but is actually a ben Torah who feels like he's a brother to him. Except this boy was told his whole life that only his kind are true bnei Torah. It destroys the entire narrative. They can't have that.
I once was walking in Mea Shearim with a gemara in my hand, and some Badatz looking guy had his hat blown under a car. So i offered to get it for him, and i asked him to hold the gemara - which he graciously agreed to (good thing it wasn't Freud or Scholem). Alas he didn't speak to me, bu he nodded when i gave the hat back to him..
DeleteWas it an Artscroll?
DeleteNot sure artscroll was published then. Was an old copy I bought in a 2nd hand corner.
DeleteWell good thing it wasn't a Steinsaltz.
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