One of the lesser known facts about the Israeli governments support for Torah learning is that until now the government has provided money to Yeshivas for foreign students who were enrolled. There are approximately 18,000 foreign students learning in the various Yeshivas and the government was providing the Yeshivas between 65 - 120 million shekel a year for them. That is all going to stop under the new government. There will be no more support for foreign students.
This will impact the Mir more then most Yeshivas as the Mir has over 2000 foreign students and was getting over 20 million shekel for them. Now the Mir is going to have to figure out how to replace that 20 million shekel from other sources.
6 comments:
How will they replace that?
With more shnorrers going aboard and banging on my door at 10 at night.
I tried to tell people for along time that although the basic beit midrash approach is a good approach-still the way this approach morphed into the modern day yeshivas was not kosher. stone walling was the only answer i every got.
people refused believe that using the Torah to make money is wrong. they refused to admit that most orthodox rabbis are lower than average IQ morons , not superior beings. Now in the world of Torah there is a place for everyone.But not for people that claim mental and morally superiority over everyone else and claim a right to your money. and claim that what they are doing is working for a living, not as it actually it just living over charity.
i highly recommend a return to the kest system. a bachur sitting at your table is unlikely to be claiming that he is an astronaut working for a living while you are just some scumbag meant to serve him.
Adam--Interesting observation. I think Milton Friedman observed that everyone is scrupulous when spending their own money, but less so when spending someone else's. It's much harder to make one's self spend one's father-in-law's money than to spend the government's, especially when one has to meet his eyes over the dinner table.
Perhaps now, the FFB yeshiva world will take another look at the chozer b'tshuva yeshivot (Aish HaTorah and Ohr Sameyach, among others) -- they long ago got "credentialed" by the US government, making their American students eligible for loans, stipends, grants, etc. In fact, as a Vietnam-era veteran, I received two years of my GI Bill education benefits while learning at Aish HaTorah, during 1980/81. Perhaps this will be a "back-door" approach to bring S'dom into G'mara, by introducing secular subjects into the yeshiva curriculum, in order to fulfill US government requirements.
just a quick thought on this, this could be a way for IL gov't to encourage emigration to Israel.
I don't know statistics of how many people that go to study in israel stay in israel, but cutting this program could have an adverse affect on emigration to Israel from USA.
MGI -- Just post a sign on your door, "No Schnorring While I'm Snoring."
JB Horen -- Nice pun on "bring[ing] S'dom into G'mara. Puns -- including interlingual ones -- are a venerable Jewish tradition.
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