A Thousand Ways To Take Your Money

How charedim support their lifestyle

A number of senior rabbis are currently making their way around the USA to raise money for charedim in Israel, on behalf of the anti-Zionist “Keren Olam HaTorah” organization (including, shockingly, R. Asher Weiss). Their message is about the importance of financially supporting the long-term full-time learning of charedim, whose refusal to help relieve the crushing burden of the war has resulted in the Attorney-General and the courts reducing the special financial benefits that charedim formerly received.

I thought it would be worthwhile for the general public to be aware of some of the myriad of ways in which charedim in Israel extract money from the rest of the nation, many unethical, and only some of which have been halted in light of their non-compliance with the draft.

This post will no doubt bring a lot of flak from people who will accuse me of lashon hara, charedi-bashing, antisemitism, etc. Yet such people would have no problem with protesting wrongs that they see committed by others. Indeed, the Gedolim™ of Keren Olam HaTorah are spreading a completely false narrative of there being “persecution of charedim” as part of “a war against Torah,” whereas in fact it’s just a matter of Israel finally somewhat enforcing laws that apply to everyone. And R. Bunim Schreiber, of “We don’t need to have gratitude to the pathetic soldiers just like we don’t need to have gratitude to garbage collectors” infamy, claimed in front of the Lakewood yeshiva that he was refused medical treatment at a hospital because he is charedi.

Furthermore, the charedi MKs recently openly boasted about how they had ingeniously tricked the Opposition into voting for funding that they didn’t actually support. When the representatives of the Gedolim themselves boast about taking financial advantage of the rest of us, I’m certainly not going to hush it up.

So here goes:

Random Welfare Scams

There are endless types of welfare scams. Here’s one I heard from an inside source: A charedi family donated 5000 shekels a month to the local chessed non-profit, thereby receiving tax benefits. The chessed committee then gave them 5000 shekels a month!

To get some idea of how prevalent this sort of thing is, the charedi radio station Kol Berama quoted a case of a chareidi inspector for Bituach Leumi who was concerned about reporting charedi fraud, because rabbonim say that it is permissible and even a mitzvah. The radio reported that she asked a rav who said that it is forbidden and that it’s time (!) to stop stealing from the state, and the radio described this ruling as charig - “unusual” (!!).

Daycare Subsidies

As I wrote in a post on this topic, Israel subsidizes daycare for many families to encourage workforce participation and economic development. Accordingly, it is only granted to couples in which both parents either work or are studying towards gainful employment. If the father isn’t working, there’s no reason for the public to fund daycare so that the wives can work - daddy can do daycare. However, the charedim used their political clout to rate families in which the husband learns in kollel as being eligible, even though they are neither working nor studying towards gainful employment. It thereby entirely undermined the purpose of the subsidies, as well as enabling charedim to be disproportionately large recipients of them compared to their percentage of the population.

Coalition Allocations

The proportion of the government budget set aside for “coalition allocations” has increased enormously in recent years. This is a convenient way for Bibi to do simple exchanges of millions of shekels for political support, in this case to provide money for charedim to pursue a kollel lifestyle. Now, you might argue that this isn’t unethical, it’s just the system. However, I would argue that it’s unethical by Chazal’s own standards. Chazal made many statements about the importance of being self-sufficient, of raising one’s children to be self-sufficient, of working even in lowly forms of employment rather than living off public coffers, and about the impropriety of using Torah for financial benefit. Using political machinations to force people to fund those choosing to learn Torah rather than support themselves is thus unethical.

Fictitious Yeshiva Students

Many of the “yeshiva students” funded by these coalition agreements are not even learning in yeshiva. Recently a news story broke about a yeshiva in Ashkelon which received tens of millions of shekels for its 648 kollel and yeshiva students. However, an inspection found that the relatively small building could accommodate only about 100 people at the most and in fact only had a few dozen. According to testimony obtained by investigators, the scheme operated through people falsely registering as kollel students, who in return allegedly gave part of their stipends back to the association in cash. Journalist Tuvia Yagelnik is quoted as saying: “This is only the tip of the iceberg of a large industry of fictitious reporting about kollel students in the charedi community.”

The Housing Lottery

As I wrote in detail in a post on this topic, Israel has a strange housing lottery which enables the winners to obtain apartments at a steeply subsidized price. Inexplicably, this is also open to people who do not serve the country. And charedi MKs manipulated the lottery to disproportionately increase the number of charedi recipients.

“Kids With Cancer” Kollel Schemes

On more than one occasion, when going through my credit card bills, I’ve found mysterious monthly payments to charities. Once, it turned out to be a charedi kollel that had somehow gotten access to the credit card info of many people. On another occasion, I was on the phone with the charity, and they told me that they collect for children with cancer. I researched their non-profit registration and found out that they indeed profess to do this - along with supporting people in kollel. From what I subsequently heard, apparently there’s a lot of this sort of thing.

Schools That Don’t Teach General Studies

This was a big one - over one billion shekels. In order to receive state funding, schools must teach the state curriculum (which prepares students to enter the workforce and contribute to the economy). Some charedi school networks agreed teach a certain percentage of the curriculum in exchange for a certain percentage of funding. However, they didn’t actually teach any of the curriculum at all. Hence, they stole the funding.

Boycotts and Blackmail

There’s lots of good reasons why many people fly El Al - it’s a Jewish company, it’s very safe, and when there’s a war, there may be no alternative. However, it’s also very expensive. There are several potential reasons for this, some good and some bad, yet perhaps one reason is that MK Goldknopf threatened a boycott which was purportedly about El Al flying over Shabbos, but was solved by El Al making huge “donations” to charities affiliated with Goldknopf’s Gur Hasidic sect.

Fictitious Youth Groups

This one surfaced a few months ago. Over 75% of all registered youth enrolled in Israeli youth movements are in charedi movements, correspondingly receiving millions in funding. However, these movements do not actually exist in real life. There are barely any activities or meetings - often none at all. Just signatures on forms, and instructions to counselors on how to fool inspectors.

No doubt all these are only a fraction of the ways in which charedim extract money from everyone else. I’m leaving the comments section open to all, so that people with further examples can present them. And I plan to write a future post discussing how and why they rationalize it to themselves. Meanwhile, if Keren Olam HaTorah offers me the mitzvah of giving them money, my reply will be, “Thanks, I already gave.”

Personally, I resent the money I have to give (or have been tricked into giving) to support the charedi community. I am furious about how much money my children will have to give from whatever income they can earn between endless rounds of reserve duty due to charedim not serving. And I fear greatly for the future of a country in which such a large and growing sector creates a way of life that relies on draining the economy.

The only way this will change is if enough of the public are aware enough and feel strongly enough about it to ensure that charedim are not in the next government. Please share this post and spread the word.