Education Ministry cuts Yad Vashem shuttles budget, school trips canceled

The report also noted that dozens of tours have already been cancelled, while the Ministry has also notified schools across the country that funding for student transportation has been frozen.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
PEOPLE VISIT the Hall of Names at the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in May. (photo credit: RONEN ZVULUN / REUTERS)
PEOPLE VISIT the Hall of Names at the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in May.
(photo credit: RONEN ZVULUN / REUTERS)
The Education Ministry has stopped funding shuttles to the Yad Vashem National Holocaust Memorial, citing budgetary constraints, according to a report released by Ynet.
The report also noted that dozens of tours have already been canceled, while the ministry has also notified schools across the country that funding for student transportation has been frozen for the time being.
School administrators were given the option to pursue private funding, at the tune of NIS 1000 private fee for travel or giving up the tour altogether. Teachers have lambasted the decision, referring to it as a “scandal.”
The report noted that blame has been attributed to the current political impasse and lack of budget flexibility with the current caretaker government, following the inability of both the Likud and Blue and White parties to form a coalition government since April 2019.
Haggai Gross, director of Social and Youth administration at the Education Ministry, who is responsible for the tours, said that "Holocaust memory is a national mission, and is intended for all Israeli students." He added that "the trip to Poland is part of this mission, but not all students of Israel go on it. Therefore, the Ministry of Education subsidizes a seminar for the upper year students, at Yad Vashem (including transportation to the Memorial) – seminars intended for all students, regardless of whether they go on a trip to Poland. Every student is entitled, along with his or her class, to exercise this eligibility, that is – to go on a seminar trip to the Holocaust Memorial."