The Israeli government gives stipends to Charedim to do nothing?

You may have noticed that I don;t poke my head into Israeli politics, I don’t understand them much and when it comes to what “pro” and “anti” Israel may mean I don’t really know an since I don’t automatically assume that the JDL is pro Israel and J street is anti-Israel I may get myself shot – so I stay out – but after being forwarded the NY Times article (I know they are rabidly Anti-Semitic – sue me) about the situation regarding stipends for Charedim who don’t work in Israel – I figured I had to throw my uninformed opinion into the mix.

My first response was “hold the truck up, you mean to tell me that for sitting around and learning or doing nothing, Haredim get paid by the government and someone who is considered a Haredi Rabbi said something about this bassackward practice is considered amalek?”

In America it’s quite different, the generation before the current one worked, so we have some form of support system, we also tend to get jobs at some point – there are thousands of Charedim (yeshivish and chassidish) that work full time, many making a lot of moneyt so they can support yeshivas if they feel like doing so, but this doesn’t seem to be the case in Israel.

I myself don;t really believe that people sitting in yeshiva learning and bettering the world, but if they have a support system to do that and aren’t really hurting society by learning ancient texts and drinking instance coffee (this might be hurting society by keeping instant coffee companies in business) while their wives slave away at their basement photography business and sheitel washing companies I’m cool with it.

What I find most interesting and I know it;s been said a thousand times before, is that these people are taking handouts from a government and state they choose not to support nor acknowledge, this is insane. I know Americans take handouts, I have many friends sitting in yeshiva who are on food stamps, medicaid and WIC, but they would be on those even if they were working and not being paid enough and many of them being true Republicans look at themselves as hypocrites and want to change – is that the case in Israel?