8,500 Israeli Yeshiva Students Magically Disappear

Well, whad’ya know!  The number of yeshiva students in Israel has suddenly dropped by 6.5 percent, an unprecedented decrease.  What account for the plummet of 8,500 students?  Their names were simply erased from the rolls.

It’s all because Israeli government inspectors have started doing their jobs and showing up to review attendance.  They’ve even started requiring students to produce legal identification in order to prove that they are who they claim to be.

The institutions where the crackdown is taking place include both yeshivas for high school aged boys and the kollels where married men, exempt from military service, are supposed to be spending their days.  For the former, the fraud is related to improper reporting by the schools which then receive per pupil payments.  For the latter, both the schools AND the yeshiva bums are often committing fraud because they both receive government handouts.  Many of the yeshiva bums actually work for under-the-table cash while pretending to study.

The report is only available on the Ynet Hebrew site.