Education
Education is a priority of the community and several institutions operate locally: a daycare center, preschools, the boy's Zilberman Talmud Torah, and the Od Yosef Chai (Joseph Still Lives) institutions headed by Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, comprising the Dorshei Yichudcha yeshiva high school, a post-high school yeshiva gedola, previously located in Joseph's Tomb Nablus, headed by Rabbi Yitzhak Ginzburg, and a kollel. The yeshiva, built illegally according to the IDF military prosecutor, supports the so-called "price tag" policy, and senior rabbis of the yeshiva are suspected to encourage students to attack Palestinians and Palestinian property and the Israeli security forces. Several students affiliated with the yeshiva were forbidden to enter the West Bank on "well-founded suspicions that these students had been involved in attacks on Arabs, including "price tag" attacks on Arab property".
In 2003, rabbi Ginzburg who is a member of the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic movement, was indicted for incitement to racism in his book "Tipul Shoresh" ("Root Treatment"), which contains calls for the Arabs to be expelled from Israel and for the land to be "cleansed" of foreigners and compares the Arabs to a cancer. Previous demands to indict Ginzburg had been rejected by Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein in 2001 and following the 1998 publication of Ginzburg's book "Baruch Hagever" ("Baruch the Man"), which praised the mass murderer Baruch Goldstein. Ginzburg was offered an end to all criminal proceedings against him in return for his explicitly and publicly retracting his offensive statements about Arabs.
In January 2010, rabbi Shapira was arrested for alleged involvement in the torching of a Palestinian mosque in the village of Yasuf, after five of his students had been arrested on suspicion of torching the mosque's carpet and book closet and obstructing the investigation. Shapira, who refused to say which of his students had taken part in the attack, was released a day after his arrest.
According to Haaretz, Israeli security service Shin Bet is urging the Education Ministry to stop funding the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva in Yitzhar. In 2009, the yeshiva high school received NIS 468,000 and the yeshiva gedola received NIS 847,000 from the Education Ministry. The yeshiva also got NIS 707,000 from the Social Affairs Ministry for a project to rehabilitate ultra-Orthodox drop-outs, and an additional NIS 156,000 to operate a dormitory. In January 2011, it was decided not to transfer funds to the yeshiva gedola, but after political pressure was applied, the yeshiva received a letter saying funding would be restored. Od Yosef Chai, for its part, is preparing to petition the High Court of Justice if its funding is halted.
In November 2011, Israel's Education Ministry decided to withhold funds from the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva and close down the Dorshei Yehudcha Yeshiva high school. The decision was based on information received from the defense establishment of extensive involvement by students and rabbis in violent acts against Palestinian residents and Israeli security forces.
Read more about this topic: Yitzhar
Famous quotes containing the word education:
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