Shas minister accused of using taxpayer money to fund party newspaper - report

Shas party Minister in the Education Ministry Haim Biton is allegedly being investigated for illegally financing a party-affiliated newspaper using state funds, KAN reported on Tuesday night. 

KAN previously reported that Haderech, the Shas-affiliated newspaper, paid its employees with funds from the party’s Bnei Yosef school network, which is budgeted by the Education Ministry.

The central concern of the ongoing investigation is that during Biton's tenure as CEO of the education network, public funds intended for the Education Ministry were used to finance the party-affiliated private newspaper.

The funding was allegedly carried out in a variety of ways. One of them was through a Bnei Yosef employee’s salary, who was a former editor of the paper. Another suspected manner involved a roundabout transaction through a printing house that provides services to Bnei Yosef, according to the evidence put forward cited by KAN. 

Bnei Yosef offered to pay hundreds of thousands of shekels to prevent the release of documents linking it to the newspaper's funding, KAN reported. 

Financial trouble in the haredi education sector

These reports come in the wake of longstanding financial concerns regarding the haredi education system. 

Back in August, Education Minister Yoav Kisch presented to the Knesset Education Committee new regulations intended to enable salary raises for thousands of teachers in the two major haredi elementary school systems, including Bnei Yosef, despite not having reached agreements with the Finance and Justice ministries on a number of key issues.

This followed Israel’s Accountant General Yali Rothenberg criticizing Bnei Yosef for flawed financial conduct, requiring major organizational overhaul. 

Both Bnei Yosef and its counterpart Chinuch Atzmai (Independent Education), which is largely affiliated with the Lithuanian haredi sector and the Degel HaTorah party, received over NIS 3 billion annually in state funding during the past few years, and each shared characteristics with government bodies – they have been directly connected to the government’s bank accounts and have employed a Finance Ministry-appointed accountant to run their finances.

This has allegedly allowed them to avoid oversight and scrutiny over the handling of their finances.

Eliav Breuer contributed to this report.