The Department for Torah Institutes in the Ministry of Education, under director Amos Tziada, will transfer enlarged funding to Torah institutes, yeshivas and kollels on Thursday, to assist yeshiva students.

The enlarged funding is the result of a political initiative by Deputy Education Minister MK Meir Porush and the Chairman of the Finance Committee, MK Moshe Gafni, both of United Torah Judaism (UTJ).

The previous government drastically cut budgets to the educational institutions that are recognized by the government, but are not part of the formal education system.

The coalition agreement between Likud and UTJ in the present government specified that Torah institutes would receive the same budgets that they received in 2012, before the cuts made by the previous government.

While the state budget for 2015-16 has not yet been approved, the Ministry of Education has reached understandings with the Ministry of Finance, according to which the Torah institutes will start receiving their increased budgets this month. The Education Ministry’s Department for Torah Institutes is making all-out efforts to ensure that the institutes receive their budgets by Thursday, before Rosh Hashana.

Deputy Education Minister Porush thanked Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, Education Minister Bennett, Finance Committee Chairman Gafni and Torah Institutes Department Director Tziada for their efforts to ensure that the kollel and yeshiva budget is increased even before the budget is passed – “to try and fix, even by a small degree, the injustices of the previous government, which tried to erase all support for pure Jewish education in the Land of Israel.”