What a shock: MK's leading charge for 'equalizing the burden' did not serve in combat units
The Haredi website Kikar Shabbat discloses that while most Haredim who serve in Nachal Haredi (the Haredi unit, which is the largest unit in the IDF) serve in combat units, some members of the Yesh Atid party who have been pushing hardest for 'equalizing the burden' served in - AHEM - '
alternative service' (link in Hebrew). Here's what some of them did in the IDF:
Party leader and Finance Minister Yair Lapid - Reporter for IDF newspaper
Education Minister Shai Piron - Served in Education Corps while in a hesder yeshiva
Science and Technology Minister Yaakov Peri - Served in IDF orchestra (and later in the General Security Service)
MK Yoel Rezbozov - Shortened service as an outstanding athlete
Health Minister Yael German - Did not serve (got married young, one of her sons was killed in action)
MK Dov Lipman - Did not serve (made aliya from the US at age 34)
MK Rena Frankel - Did not serve (made aliya from Russia at age 30)
At Yesh Atid, the reaction to the report. Some of it is in the parentheses above. Here's some more:
Peri's spokseman claims he was assigned to a paratroopers unit where he was wounded and therefore was assigned alternative service. He also spent 30 years in the GSS.
Rezbozov decided to do what all his friends did but was brave enough to wave an Israeli flag in the town where Hitler was born (no, I'm not joking - he really said this).
Lapid and Piron's offices did not comment.
Hmmm.
Labels: Dov Lipman, Haredim, IDF, Shai Piron, Yair Lapid, Yesh Atid party
Why the government of Israel doesn't want you to know Arabic
I must admit that I'm not rushing to sign my kids up for Arabic lessons, but it didn't really occur to me that
this is why the government of Israel is cutting back on teaching Arabic to Jewish public school kids.
In
practice, though, [Education Minister Shai Piron] doesn't want us to learn Arabic. He wants Arabic
studies to last no longer than three years so that he could slash the
budgets allocated to teaching the language.
Could this reform be
part of the new policy introduced recently by the Education Ministry,
which seems to be encouraging kids towards ignorance while teaching them
a whole lot of nothing? At the same time, it is worth wondering whether
there is anything special about learning Arabic.
It appears that there
is. Whoever knows Arabic is likely to listen to Arab news media, surf
Palestinian websites, and read Arabic newspapers. Then they are likely
to discover the truth: the other side is awash with such a virulent
stream of anti-Semitic racism that all talk of peace here is delusional.
The party to which the
education minister belongs is entrenched firmly in what is inexplicably
referred to as "the peace camp." Knowing the Arabic language is anathema
to this camp. The more Arab-language speakers there are, the less
supporters.
Hmmm.
Labels: Arabic, Shai Piron
It's about time!
Education Minister Shai Piron (Yesh Atid) appears likely to fire a high school civics teacher from the Haifa suburb of Kiryat Tivon for
bringing his radical Leftist politics into the classroom.
The teacher, according to the student, tried to convince students to
dodge the IDF draft. As a result, the Education Ministry is seeking to
fire him.
The student wrote a letter on the matter to Education Minister Shai
Piron. Piron called the teacher in for a meeting in the wake of the
student's complaint.
The student wrote that she was very confused because of the teacher.
“I am supposed to join the army in less than a year, and my teacher is
telling me that the army is immoral, and that anyone who joins it is
forced to do cruel things,” the letter said, Channel Two reported.
Speaking to Channel Two, the student said that the teacher's comments “made me very angry. I see this as anti-army incitement.”
In addition to railing against the army, the teacher, according to
the student, told students that he was a radical leftist, “and according
to him the state did not belong to the Jews at all but to the Arabs,
and as fast as he was concerned, the Jews had no business being in
Israel at all.”
The teacher, said the student, said that he had voted for Hadash, the Israel Communist Party.
Teachers on the state payroll are supposed to keep their politics out of the classroom. BWAHAHAHAAHA!
Labels: Education, Israel's suicidal Left, Shai Piron
And again: Lapid puts his foot in his mouth
Yair Lapid has put his foot in his mouth again.
On Friday, Lapid wrote a post on his Facebook page in which he called for firing Israel's Chief Rabbis for ruling that Jewish law forbids drafting women into the IDF.
There's one small problem: When he was the head of the Orot Shaul (hesder) Yeshiva (a Yeshiva that combines Torah study with army service), Lapid's number 2 in the Yesh Atid party, Rabbi Shai Piron, wrote a responsum in which he stated that he is
not aware of any halachic ruling that permits women to serve in the IDF (link in Hebrew).
So will Lapid now fire Piron?
Labels: Haredim, hesder, IDF, Shai Piron, women, Yair Lapid, Yesh Atid party
Education Minister Piron told not to come to graduation
Education Minister Shai Piron of Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid party has been told
not to come to graduation at the Kiryat Ono law and business schools' Jerusalem branch.
The management of the Kiryat Ono Academic College's campus in
Jerusalem announced, Sunday, that there will be no guest speeches at its
commencement exercises, including one that had been scheduled to be
delivered by Education Minister Shai Piron. Graduates in the college's
hareidi-religious law and business-adminstration programs had to
threatened not to attend if Rabbi Piron spoke, citing what they called
his fighting against the Torah world and forcing changes of lifestyle on
the next generation.
In announcing the decision, the college
said, "Parties with agendas, most of them off the hareidi campus, chose
to exploit the ceremony for awarding degrees to earn political capital
at the expense of the students." The management statement said, "We will
not allow a handful of hareidi deal makers to harm the festive
character of the event and put a stain on the whole graduating class."
I'm not sure I understand the last sentence, but I can definitely understand why Haredim - even law and business school graduates - would not want Piron there.
This is what most of the non-Haredi world doesn't get. Even those Haredim who leave full-time Torah study and go out to work are likely to put their children into the system. They're not leaving the system because they disdain Torah study (God forbid). They are leaving it because they need to support their families and have already studied Torah for as long as they believe themselves to be financially able. That is often 10 years or more post-high school.
Labels: Haredim, Shai Piron, Yair Lapid, Yesh Atid party
