Rabbis investigated

When you get involved with any government you must be extra scrupulous and honest in all your dealings. Or-

Haaretz editorial :


This weekend's Haaretz magazine exposes a major corruption scandal that could be called the "Latvia 2 affair." Hundreds of policemen, army officers and noncommissioned officers are suspected of having received fictitious certification as rabbis from important yeshivas. This gave them salary increases of up to NIS 2,000 a month, equivalent to the increase granted to those with academic degrees.

For the yeshivas, it was worthwhile due to the tuition they collected for the few hours of study each week. But the treasury annually suffered millions of shekels of damages.

This scam, which has been going on for three years already, involved senior members of the rabbinic establishment: former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliahu, former Sephardi chief rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, and members of the Chief Rabbinate Council, including Haifa Chief Rabbi She'ar Yeshuv Hacohen, Be'er Sheva Chief Rabbi Yehuda Deri, and Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliahu.Employers ought to encourage their workers to pursue an education in their line of business and reward them with pay increases. But in recent years, Israel has witnessed a growing phenomenon of "pseudo-education" solely for the purpose of salary increases, which turns the issue of professional education into a laughingstock and is liable to injure those who truly deserve such raises....
The religious world attaches great importance to the term hillul hashem (desecration of God's name), meaning acts that are not only undesirable and even forbidden, but that sow contempt for religion. The rabbinic certification affair is a desecration of God's name on a grand scale...