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1999 Jetta

A Shortcut For Shas

The Sephardic Orthodox party has found a way
around college requirements for top ministers.

NECHEMIA MEYERS

Special to The Jewish News

\

Rehovot, Israel
hoever forms the next gov-
ernment, Shas will almost
certainly be a part of it.
Shas, led by Haredi
Sephardic Jews, grows from election to
election. It won six seats in the 1992
elections, 10 in the 1996 elections and
is expected to win still more in May.
And if past experience is any guide,
the party will join any government so
long as the prime minister promises to
keep on pouring millions upon
millions of shekels into the pro-
jects it sponsors.
Shas now runs two patronage-
rich ministries — Labor and the
Interior — as well as sharing con-
trol of the Ministry of Religious
Affairs with the National
Religious Party; so there are plen-
ty of jobs to dole out. However,
one serious problem remains:
Candidates for senior government
positions are generally required to
have an academic degree, and most
Shasniks only have a yeshiva educa-
tion.
Now the ever resourceful Shas peo-
ple have found a way to solve that
problem. How they have done it
strikes at the heart of the debate over
how secular and religious Israelis live
together — or, rather, how they don't.
They have made an agreement with
Touro College, an American-Jewish
educational institution with a branch
in Israel, to have a special one-day-a-
week program for Shas adherents,
admission to which does not require
— as is the case in ordinary universi-
ties — a matriculation certificate and
a reasonably good score on an
entrance exam. Better yet, graduates of
yeshivot get generous credit for their
religious studies, so that many are not
obligated to earn more than 60 per-
cent of the usual credits to get a
degree. This means that they will have
a sheepskin in hand within two years.
Though Israel boasts eight universi-
ties and three dozen degree-granting

colleges of its own, thousands of
Israelis choose to study for a degree at
local branches of foreign institutions
where the academic demands are not
on a par with Tel Aviv University,
Haifa University, the Hebrew
University or Bar-Ilan. But, as the
overseas bodies say in their ads, the
institutions "are recognized for wage
scale purposes by the Israeli Ministry
of Education."
As might be expected, these other
institutions are up in arms at the spe-
cial Touro program. A typical response
has come from Professor Zohar Shavit
of Tel Aviv University. "This pro-

Touro Coe e
softens entrance
rules for Shas.

Nechemia Meyers, an American
who moved to Israel in 1948, writes
from Rehovot.

gram," she declared, "is not on an
acceptable academic level and the
public sector will be adversely affect-
ed if it is staffed by personnel trained
within the framework of the pro-
gram.
"I would be very pleased," Shavit
went on, "if people with a yeshiva
background would enroll at regular
universities and pursue a normal
course of studies. I'm sure that they
are capable of doing so, and that way
they would become part and parcel of
Israeli society. But the Touro College
scheme is a transparent attempt to
get a degree on the cheap."
This accusation is heatedly denied
by the man behind the plan, Gabi
Boutbul, a Shas leader who recently
was appointed deputy chairman of
the Broadcasting Authority.
"Our intention," he declared, "is
to make it possible for our people to
get top-level jobs in government and
in the economy on the basis of their
academic qualifications and not
because of political pressure.
Moreover, we realize that their pro-
found knowledge of Talmud isn't
enough; they must also be able to
read a balance sheet, operate a com-
puter and understand modern man-
agement." I I

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Detroit Jewish News 25