Israeli businessman slams IDF exemptions for haredim
Israeli entrepreneur Zohar Zisapel tells participants at Tel Aviv business conference that the modest arrangement once reached on exemptions must be overturned before "the tumor becomes malignant"
"Draft exemptions for full-time yeshiva students have become a cancerous tumor that require us to expunge it without compromise," said RAD Group founder Zohar Zisapel Monday at the Israeli Business Conference in Tel Aviv.
Zisapel made the remarks while speaking on a panel of businesspeople and senior officials regarding the influence of failures in Israeli education on the economy. Zisapel claimed that the fact that many haredim do not work has made them impoverished and harms Israel's economic achievements. The successful entrepreneur added that he is intimately familiar with the problem, as his RAD Group employs many haredim.
Zisapel told the audience of an initiative he once took part in to involve outstanding haredi yeshiva students in the IDF's Talpiot academic project. He appealed to the Haredi Yeshivas, asking them to suggest students who would fit the project in exchange for government funds.
According to Zisapel, the haredim were instead interested in a different arrangement. "What they offered was this," he said. "You can take quasi-haredim who will work, the most important thing is that we get our budget. Needless to say, nothing came of it."
"Expunge the tumor"
Zisapel reminded participants that the historic agreement between Ben-Gurion and the representatives of the haredi community provided only for military exemptions to be delivered to a few dozens of outstanding haredi students.
Over the years, the combination of skilled haredi deal-makers and overly flexible secular leaders, the arrangement grew until today, when almost ten thousand of those haredim receiving exemptions annually are students in name only.
"In order to prevent this tumor from becoming malignant, we must expunge it without compromising. We can allow a few dozens of students a year (to continue in yeshiva), as in the original agreement, and as the religious world requires to fill its reserves with the rabbis of the future. Also, we need to demand that every school implement the core curriculum- including mathematics and English, not just Gemara and Aramaic."
As the panel continued, Zisapel expressed his opinion that the government must transfer funds currently marked for yeshivas to support IDF soldiers. His remarks were received with applause by the audience, which included many important members of the Israeli business community, most of whom are secular- with almost no haredim.
Dinur: Haredi unemployment- enormous waste
Prime Minister's Office Director General Raanan Dinur, who also participated in the panel, addressed the issue at hand, saying: "Unemployment in the haredi sector — as in others like that of Arab women — constitutes an enormous waste of potential. The government has done much in recent years to overcome this problem. The majority of the public is not sufficiently aware of what we are doing there, and that's a shame."
As an example, Dinur pointed to the government's project to increase employment opportunities for haredi women, like software companies, high tech firms, telephone call centers, and others- which were established with government support.
