Ovadia Yosef: “Secular teachers are not teachers, they are donkeys”

December 4, 2007 6:43 am henrymunsonjr Shas

Shtrasler, The donkey’s burden - Haaretz, Dec. 4, 2007

“Secular teachers are not teachers, they are donkeys,” declared Shas’ spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, in his weekly sermon Saturday night. They are donkeys because they do not teach the Torah, he explained to his audience.

But it seems not only the teachers are donkeys. Israel’s entire secular population takes pains to ensure its children study mathematics, English, science, history and Torah, so they can become productive citizens living by their labor and paying high taxes - which are then divided among Yosef’s followers. They also enlist in the army, are wounded and killed - in part, to protect Yosef’s home. Whoever behaves this way must truly be an ass.

One of the teachers’ demands is for fewer pupils per classroom. The public school system is home to the greatest overcrowding, which is less prevalent in the public-religious system and least felt in the Shas and United Torah Judaism religious schools. The reason for this stems from the division of public-religious and ultra-Orthodox education into dozens of different offshoots, each with its own school.

Thus, tens of millions of shekels are wasted on these small, inefficient schools, which are convenient for the sheep in Yosef’s flock; they benefit daily from longer school days, lunches and transportation - all paid for by the state, which lacks the funds to offer the same conditions in the public school system. In other words, to offer the donkeys the same.

Comments are closed.