I call upon Ben Gvir to leave the IDF out of the political discourse. We cannot allow in any way for a solider in uniform to express himself in favor of any political party. The soldiers and fighters of the IDF must be at least one level higher than the political activists

Hamechadesh has two pieces that are curiosities that seemed interesting and quirky enough to point out

the story that keeps on giving... 

In what seems to be a legal precedent, a court ruled considering an injured avreich based on normal average wages for compensation rather than based on what his kollel earnigns are and how they were affected.

This is rich!

I probably should not be writing anything on this topic, and anything I do write, its point will almost definitely be taken out of context and/or misunderstood... so to pre-empt any assumptions base don what I write, I am NOT in favor of the canceling of the subsidies to day care for avreichim that Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman just announced a few days ago.

Some people can be very creative, and honestly some of the most creative people are in the leadership and askanus of the Haredi community.

According to Kikar, a number of avreichim from Bnei Braq tried to register for training for positions of heads of ballot boxes for the upcoming elections. When they discovered that the training is held without gender segregation, they got upset and are talking about not getting involved and not taking these positions.

besides for earning some decent money on election day, these positions are influential and somewhat help the party ( I am not sure how much it really helps, but the party leaders all think it does, as they all try to maximize their representation).

One of the relevant avreichim explained that he is not going to register for the position and will just give it up. There is no way he is going to sit in a gender-mixed training session. it is ridiculous, he said, that he should be forced to sit without gender segregation.

I do wonder if this avreichm, and the others involved, are aware that the task he is trying to register for is more than just a training session. Is he aware that he will have to sit all day at a table with other electoral supervisors and some of them will be women? Is he aware that he will have to take teudat zehuts from voters, including female voters, and look at their pictures?

Perhaps we can establish a new policy in the Ministry of Interior that female citizens get their faces blurred out on their teudat zehut, or they can get a teudat zehut with no picture, so avreichim at the electoral table shouldn't need to look at their pictures.

So, back to the original, they can't sit in a training session int he same room as a woman, and definitely not next to, but even if that gets resolved how can they serve in the position they are registering for? Why is it ok there but not in the training session?

The Ministry of Finance is cutting budgets. Among other things, the budget allocated for yeshiva students and avreichim is also being cut.

The news has publicized a series of meetings that were to be held by leaders of the Haredi parties, the Ministry of Finance and PM Benjamin Netanyahu to try to find a solution, to try to persuade the MoF to scrap the budget cuts, to find alternate monies, or some other solution to save the yeshivas and avreichim from these cuts.

At the last minute the meetings were canceled by Netanyahu. Supposedly Netanyahu was concerned about the publicity the issue would receive in the press of him cutting budgets of various items but agreeing to increase the budgets for yeshivas, or at least cancel the planned cuts if not an actual increase.

In the grand scheme of things, it does not sound like a lot of money, but when bundled with all the other budget cuts it is probably pretty significant.

According to Actualic, the Prime Minister's Office told the Haredi politicians to lower their profile on the matter and not turn it into a crisis and not talk about this topic in interviews. UTJ seems to think that despite the efforts they plan to continue to make to avert the budget cuts, it is a done deal and there won't be anything for them to do.

According to Behadrei, the cuts are so significant that the new numbers are similar to what the yeshivas and avreichim received from the government back in the days of Yair Lapid's government (also under Netanyahu). The numbers they publish, if accurate, are pretty similar.

I am surprised. The Haredi parties have backed Netanyahu through thick and thin in recent years and have been unwavering in their support. This does not seem like so much money that Netanyahu would not agree to give it back, especially considering the support he received from them. Netanyahu has overseen significant budget cuts to the yeshivas a number of times already.

Back in the day Netanyahu, as Finance Minister in 2003 I think, cut yeshiva budgets and child allowances. Thart was harsh, but Netanyahu was quickly forgiven.

In 2013 Yair Lapid was Finance Minister under Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister, and Lapid cut the yeshiva bdgets significantly. Lapid has been treated as an anti-haredi politician since then with Haredi politicians refusing to sit with him or even talk with him, yet Netanyahu who was overall in charge was let off the hook.

Now in 2020 Netanyahu is Prime Minister and the Likud holds the FInance Ministry and budgets are again being cut. I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but so far the Haredi politicians are making nary a peep.

Somehow Netanyahu gets a free pass on these issues. Not only does it seem the Haredi politicians won't be making much noise about this, but they will also likely continue supporting him for Prime Minister more solidly than anyone else...

I learned something new today.

According to Calcalist, avreichim get a full exemption form the army when they hit 25. They only need the yeshiva bochur deferment until they hit the age of 25. So, base don what we have always thought, that avreichim don't join the workforce because of their situation with the army preventing them from doing so, is not relevant after 25. So far so good.

The new fact is that only 22% of avreichim over the age of 25 leave kollel and join the workforce. 78% of avreichim stay in yeshiva long term, not because they are stuck there because of the army or in order to avoid the army, but because they choose to be there.

Since the national debate over shivyon bnetel, sharing the burden of equal army service, seems to mostly accept, and therefore allow, yeshiva bochurim to learn for at least a few years before they might be required to serve in the army under any plan that might be accepted into law, it seems that this age 25 cutoff for avreichim is probably the most important barometer.

It seems likely that lowering or raising the cutoff age will do little to help, or hurt, anyone. Unless you think that after 25 they are not leaving kollel because at that point they feel stuck with no other realistic options, they are not leaving because they, for the most part, don't want to. They likely wont leave at a younger age either.

If you think they should be encouraged to leave, then you can come up with other programs to try to change the balance, to increase the 22% leaving to join the workforce, but that is already trying to manipulate someone's chosen lifestyle. The debate has always been about pulling out the issue that prevents them from doing what they want, but these numbers indicate they mostly are doing what they want.

The one thing missing that I would like to know from this is if after 25 only 22% leave the yeshiva world - that is between 25 and what age? Is it as soon as they hit 25? Maybe when they hit 28 or 30 or 35 more leave? 25 is still reasonably young enough to go out, join a program to learn a profession or trade and start working, yet they are largely choosing not to. If they are leaving but only at 30 or 35, that would be very different, as starting to learn a profession at that age is already far more difficult.

What seems to be a good initiative has been on the government's table for a few years now. The idea was proposed and planned by Shas MKs and ministers, but it is being fought over internally with opposition by UTJ MKs, specifically Moshe Gafni and Yaakov Litzman.

The idea proposed is mandatory life insurance for avreichim. The plan would mostly be subsidized by the government, but the avreichim would have to pay a small amount - the amount proposed initially was 25nis per month.

the plan is fabulous. We regularly are inundated with collections for avreichim who suddenly died young, an untimely death (as if any death is timely), leaving behind a widow and 6, 8 or 14 kids, kids who need to be married off, etc... They turn to the public to collect, frequently, for these people, who really do need help, because there were no arrangements or plans or forethought for after death. They generally did not earn enough money as avreichim to be able to have anything extra to put into insurance or other things, but having insurance would really help the families in case of death. According to Itzik Cohen, the avreichim arent even really paying for it. They have to pay 15nis per month, but the stipend is being increased by 15nis each to cover it.

This argument between Haredi MKs has now come to a close, of sorts. Moments before being fired by PM Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday, [now former] Minister of Education Naftali Bennett signed off on Itzik Cohen's plan putting the insurance plan into effect.

While even within UTJ some approve of the plan, as MK Eichler says the Belzer Rebbe was very happy with it, Moshe Gafni has been the main one behind the opposition for th epast few years and has successfully been able to hold it off until now. Gafni was surprised, and angered, by the last minute approval of the plan.

Gafni's main reason to oppose it is not because he thinks insurance is bad or they don't need insurance. Gafni just thinks we cannot allow for a precedent in which the government tells avreichim what to do, forces them to pay for things, or anything of the like. In Gafni's own words, this is as bad a decree as the evil decree of drafting Haredim. If we allow them to tell us to do this, what will happen when tomorrow some clerk wakes up and decides to tell the Haredim what they must learn in their schools and forces them to teach core curriculum studies?
source: Kikar, Behadrei

I am pretty sure he has gone overboard and exaggerated the issue just a bit. The question is why. According to Cohen (in the Behadrei article), all the gedolim have supported it and only Gafni, all by himself, has been holding it up until now. I wonder if tzedaka organizations are behind the opposition to it - they stand to lose big, in money collections and in community influence and  control if they will not need to run such campaigns any longer. Either way, the opposition to such a plan is ridiculous. Gafni should not be turning this into an issue. Taking out a life insurance plan will not lead to learning math, English, how to parachute out of an Air Force plane or mixed dancing. Gafni even sounds cruel opposing such a plan, preferring to leave the widows and children to the mercy of the public rather than to have assistance arranged in advance through insurance.

Rav of the city cries out: Avreichim have become cooks

  -- Behadrei News

In a conference about Haredi women in the workforce and encouraging the seminary students to study towards "kosher work" as teachers, one of the complaints listed by Rav Kessler, rav of Modiin Ilit, is that because of the women working full days in the secular workforce, the avreichim have become busy doing the women's work around the house and have become cooks, even at times cooking the meals for the entire Shabbos because the wife is tired from working or too busy.

There is another "minor" drug scandal gong on in the frum community, though it is not getting much press that I can see.

Behadrei has reported on a a drug bust involving an avreich as the ringleader dealer, and 3 yeshiva boys as the mules. Among the 3 mules, 1 was actually a mule, 1 changed his mind at the last minute and did not agree to carry the suitcase, and the 3rd acted as some sort of agent bringing them together.

According to the claims of the prosecutor, this group was involved in smuggling tens of thousands of ecstasy pills into Israel.

Whatever the details of the case may be, if they are innocent or guilty, I don't know. They claim they thought they were smuggling watches, not drugs, or whatnot, they were taken advantage of. Maybe, maybe not. It does not interest me that much.

What I find interesting in all this, is how Behadrei describes the ringleader as "a kollel avreich who is the father of a young daughter, who works in a store in Bnei Braq".

Well, is he an avreich kollel or does he work in a store? Is everyone who wears a hat and jacket automatically an avreich? 

The description "avreich" is often used to imply a certain naivete and purity, someone untouched and uninfluenced by the outside world. Someone who has dedicated his life to sitting in the beis medrash and avoiding the influences of the outside world.  I submit that they are using this term to describe this fellow to portray him as innocent, as someone taken advantage of. He might very well be, but the avreich and yeshiva community might not be so maligned if the "powers that be" would stop calling every Haredi male an avreich or a rav just because they wear a hat and jacket and have a beard.

The chain of kollels in Israel led by Rabbi Weissbord has been in big trouble for a long time. They have not paid their avreichim for 10 months. Some kollels have closed, some avreichim have started to leave their kollels for other places.

I have no idea how [most] avriechim can manage to live without getting their meager salaries for so long. I don't think I could survive with my salary not being paid for ten months.

A week or so ago it was announced that Rav Shteinman helped bail Weissbord out and helped find a donor to cover all his debt and pay the avreichim what he owes. it was hailed in the Haredi media as a tremendous salvation and a miracle. There is even one story about how the donor pledged a million shekels but Rav Shteinman had them refuse it because someone on his level should be donating much more, so he upped his donation to 18 million.

My friend who is involved with this chain of kollels tells me that they were all expecting their money as they were told it was on the way. A day or two later they were told the money has been held up in the USA on suspicion of money laundering. This guy wired all the money (about $4,500,000) in one shot and it was stopped. With the US and money laundering, one never knows when, or if, it will ever be released. I have not seen this in the news anywhere - only praise for finding the donor.

Sure enough, it is only the avreichim who suffer over this.

My friend also tells me that the kollel is still in trouble because while this, even if the money ever gets released and comes through, will cover the debts from the past, they have no idea how he will pay their stipends in the coming months. He might go another ten months without paying and then have Rav Shteinman bail him out again, or maybe nobody will bail him out next time.

I don't have the answer as to what should be done. Maybe he should not be operating a chain of kollels if he cannot pay his avreichim. Maybe he should because the avreichim know the difficulty and are accepting that reality upon themselves. I am just bringing to light more of the story and giving the struggles of the avreichim some publicity.

MK Uri Maklev (UTJ) has proposed a law that would consider avreichim, and academy students, to be working men. At least for certain purposes.

According to the current law, an employee is granted 8 sick leave days per year for children who get sick, but that is conditional on the employee's spouse also being a working person and declaring they were working that day. They dont want people taking a family vacation and logging 8 days as sick days. As well, if the employee's spouse is a housewife or house husband, there is no reason to grant the employee the day off, if the stay-at-home-spouse can deal with the sick child.

Maklev says that the families of avreichim have been discriminated until now in this sense. They are not considered working men, so the working wife did not qualify for the 8 sick days per year. Meaning, the child is sick and his or her mother cannot take the day off of work to care for the child or to take him or her to the doctor. the father also cannot as he earns a kollel stipend and it is often dependent upon attendance records. and if he does because he earns less money anyway, his studies are disrupted, along with some of his pay being docked (in many cases).

The proposal passed through the Ministerial Legislative Committee after winning the approval of a committee of employers. Initially they had opposed it pointing to the high costs that would be absorbed by employers, but eventually MK Moshe Gafni somehow won them over.
source: Kikar

When I studied finances in university, they spoke about a method from John Maynard Keynes how governments can combat unemployment, by which they would hire people to dig ditches, and then hire others to fill the ditches in. Just keep finding ways to call avreichim "employed" and Israel will no longer have a underemployment or unemployment problem!

It makes more sense to me to not make the sick days dependent on a spouse but to grant 8 sick days that can be used between the two spouses over the course of the year then to grant non-working people the status of working. Then the husband and wife can between them decide which of them will take off when to care for the sick child.

The government has been putting together, at the initiative of the Haredi MKs, a plan to give a life insurance policy to every avreich. The policy would be under some sort of group rate, making each individual policy cheaper, along with not requiring each avreich to get a physical (the insurance companies work these group policies with the assumption that x number in the group are healthy enough and will live long enough to cover for the x number that will have earlier medical problems leading to death).

As the plan is now being put together, it turns out that there is an argument - among the Haredi MKs - as to who should pay for it.  Deputy Minister Itzik Cohen is putting together the plan and is going to have each avreich pay 25nis monthly out of his kollel stipend to cover the insurance payment. Minister Litzman and MK Gafni are opposed to the avreichim having this fee deducted from their stipends and want the government to allocate more money to pay for it separately.
source: Kooker, Calcalist

I don't think 25nis per avreich per month is enough money to really fight over, in either direction. It is not going to break the government's back to add another 25nis to their outlay per person, nor will it kill (pun intended) each avreich to pay the 25nis for the future benefit like any normal person would have to.

I do wonder though why with all the fighting and tough negotiating for coalition agreements back in the day after the last elections they did not throw this in there as well. And, considering how strict the Haredi MKs have been with every letter i the agreements being followed strictly, why do they have an argument now - can't the government say we have kept every letter of every word we agreed to and this isn't in there, so you have no right to demand more money?

.

One of the challenges of learning in kollel full-time is when you get thrown off schedule. Such as when the kids are sick or have vacation from school. Your wife is working and can't take off every time this happens, and sometimes you have to.

The situation is so prevalent that it even has now made it to being discussed in a Knesset committee - the committee for public inquiries, headed by MK Yisroel Eichler (UTJ).

The problem stems from the fact that the State has not recognized learning in kollel as working, thus the working mother is considered the sole breadwinner and not granting her days off as sick days for children.

Because of the committee's request, the Civil Service Commission has decided change the status of avreichim to the status of working fathers. Now, with both parents considered to be working parents, the mother will legally be granted 8 sick days for sick children.

Obviously this status affects and applies to kollel wives working in the public sector, not the private sector.

In the words of Eichler, avrechei kollel will no longer be considered as a "batlan" - a bum, a loafer, a good for nothing - available for babysitting. "Torah learning is holy work, far more important than any work being done as a State employee..."
source: Bechadrei

Eichler is not the first to call avrechei kollel and yeshiva students batlanim - loafers. The mishna and Gemara did so close to two thousand years ago. And while Eichler is using it more in the context of current vernacular, as a negative, as people see kollel guys as loafers, the Mishna calls people who are available for learning torah and making minyanim and are thus supported by the community, "batlanim" and considers it a positive name, The mishna in Megilla says a town that has ten "batlanim" is considered a big city rather than a village (for determining the day the megilla can be read on). The gemara says that a city with the batlanim is considered large enough for a sanhedrin of 23 judges. Another gemara says a talmid chochom should not live in a city without ten batlanim.

The meaning of the usage of the name is all a matter of context.

Giving these women the extra 8 days due to the change in status will be very helpful to both the mother and the father...

the following letter to the editor was in the Yated Neeman (hattip to Yaakov Lederman)

Translation:
in the coming month parents of children can expect to receive a significant increase (on about the 20th of the month) , and the question will be what to spend the unexpected money on.
My advice to those unsure: if you do not need the money, don't lok for what to spend it on. Go to your nearest Gmach and deposit the money with them. This way it will be preserved for when you really need it, and until then you will accumulate merits that will help you in both this world, and the next world.

מי כעמך ישראל!!

That being said, first he says an increase is expected, then he asks what to do with the unexpected extra money.. is it expected or not?
Then, can the people he is referring to really not need the money? Aren't they in debt? Isn't that what we've been hearing the past two years - all these people cannot afford to buy food for their kids because of the cut in the child allowance.. was that not true? maybe the parents should be spending the extra money on the diapers, on the milk, and yogurt and cheese, some chicken, etc., that they supposedly haven't been able to afford.. is the idea suggested by the writer, as good as it is, really an option for the people he is referring to?
Then, putting it a gmach is definitely a mitzva and a chessed. if they do, they should make sure they put it in a reputable one. I don't know how they can protect themselves from falling prey to one of the swindlers running these gmachs - a number in recent years have gone belly up causing losses of millions to people.
Then, shouldn't they at least consider the option of putting it, if they actually have extra money, into an investment? They might decide to prefer the gmach, but shouldn't it at least be a consideration?

Kikar is reporting a really interesting story, worth breaking in on the regular schedule of posts...

A group of avreichim learning in Kolels has decided they want to join the IDF and fight no the front lines.

Supposedly there are tens of such avreichim. They prefer to stay anonymous and not talk about it, under the guidance of "say little and do a lot". They say that after they join the reserves and actually accomplish things in the field, they will then be happy to talk about it.

The one person willing to talk is somebody who seems to be the representative of the group. He says he is Haredi, did army service and reserve duty, and wants to stay anonymous. He says there is no problem with an avreich who previously received an exemption from army service to now volunteer to perform a variety of duties for the army, and even to serve on the front lines. He says there are many initiatives to allow people to volunteer for duty, and even for people from abroad who have no obligation of army service at all, so why not also an initiative for avreichim to volunteer?

The way he says it makes it sound like the most natural thing in the world.