Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, LLP, The National Whistleblower Center, And Two European NGOs Dedicated To Whistleblower Rights Provide Finnish Officials Recommendations For Their Transposition Of The EU Whistleblower Directive
“Finland has the opportunity to modernize its anti-corruption laws and incentive whistleblowers to risk their careers by reporting violations of law. Whistleblowers are a key part of government transparency and accountability and they must be fully protected,” said Stephen M. Kohn, a partner in the whistleblower law firm of Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, LLP.
Because the Directive sets forth the “common minimum standards” for whistleblower protection required by each European Union (“EU”) Member State, the Directive permits Member States, such as Finland, to extend protections beyond these minimum standards. When implementing the Directive each Member State has an opportunity to create robust whistleblower programs that protect whistleblowers, incentivize the reporting of crimes or regulatory violations, and enable law enforcement agencies to effectively combat corruption.
Although traditionally Finland has a decent record of supporting whistleblowers, even suspending investigations where necessary to protect whistleblowers, it is lacking a comprehensive whistleblower law. Therefore, in accordance with Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, LLP’s recommendations, Finland should focus on harmonizing its current legal scheme with the new proposed whistleblower law, incentivizing credible whistleblowers to come forward, and creating clear rules for whistleblower disclosures.
Based on an expert review by Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto attorneys, specific recommendations for new whistleblower legislation include:
Expanding whistleblower protections to cover disclosures permitted under international anti-corruption treaties signed by Member States;
Narrowly interpreting a provision in the Directive that could result in retaliation against whistleblowers (Article 22);
Enacting whistleblower reward laws to combat financial frauds, money laundering, foreign bribery, ocean pollution tax evasion and other crimes; and
Adopting language and procedures that have proven effective in protecting whistleblowers when implementing Articles 6-7, 11, 14-16, 19-21, and 23-24 of the Directive.
The survey also found non-government school graduates were more likely than state school graduates to hold a bachelor’s degree, and to believe that school had prepared them for success at university.
Forty-eight per cent of respondents who attended an independent school said they held at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with 41 per cent of Catholic school graduates and 27 per cent of government school graduates.
But the gap was significantly narrower on the broader question of whether school had set people up for career success, with 55 per cent of government school graduates believing it had, compared with 60 per cent of Catholic school graduates and 63 per cent of independent school graduates.
The Australian Schools and the Common Good report, released on Wednesday, said it was widely held that since the 1980s, “the ideology of neoliberalism has redefined education policy and the subsequent educational purposes within Australian schooling”.
“Within this view, education’s main function is to improve social mobility and an individual’s economic or psychological wellbeing,” it said.
“Attachments and obligations to neighbour, community, city or nation are downplayed. Common good is understood as the sum of the private goods of discrete individuals.”
The report was commissioned by a group of six Christian school associations.
Co-author Dr Darren Iselin said the study also sought to analyse how education had influenced people’s personal relationships, ability to deal with problems in life and attitudes towards volunteering and giving.
“There’s an important conversation around privatisation and self-interest that has taken place [in society] and let’s face it, Christian schools and the non-government sector have been the beneficiaries of that, but we were really wanting to explore a more holistic narrative,” Dr Iselin said.
Just 22 per cent of Catholic school graduates and 20 per cent of independent school graduates grew up in religious families, compared with 13 per cent of government school graduates, the survey found.
This compared with 43 per cent of graduates from the six Christian school associations that commissioned the research.
“Whilst there can be an emphasis in [non-government] schools around an ethos of spiritual and religious values, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it translates to that in later life,” Dr Iselin said.
“Some of the selection processes around school choice certainly come down to providing that upward mobility.”
The report found a majority of graduates from all school sectors had donated to a charity or cause in the past year, but that volunteering rates were much lower.
It also found a significant gap in income and educational attainment between city and regional dwellers, although this gap was smallest among government school graduates.
These findings raise concerns about advantage and equity that “threaten social ties across the nation”, the report argued.
Communications officer Hella Ibrahim went to a mix of government and religious schools, including a Catholic primary and two private Islamic schools.
“While I really liked the school I completed VCE at, I don’t think it did set me up for success,” Ms Ibrahim said.
Instead it came down to the varying commitment levels of her teachers. She recalls one brilliant English literature teacher, who inspired her to high marks, and another teacher who didn’t even bother to check her homework, to the point that she stopped bothering to do it.
“Teacher attitudes matter,” Ms Ibrahim said.
With Hannah Schauder
Adam Carey is Education Editor. He joined The Age in 2007 and has previously covered state politics, transport, general news, the arts and food.
Schools in the Jewish-religious sector and Druze sector led in a number of fields in rankings released by the Education Ministry this week.The <a href="https://www.jpost.com/tags/education">Education</a> Ministry announced that there was a slight drop in the percentage of high school students that were eligible for a matriculation certificate (bagrut) in the 2019 school year.<div>69.7% of students earned a matriculation certificate compared to 69.9% in the previous year. In the Bedouin sector, the percentage of students eligible for a matriculation certificate fell 4%. In the haredi sector, the eligibility rose by 1.9%.</div><div>Some 71.8% of female students were eligible for a matriculation certificate, while only 67.2% of male students were eligible.</div><div>A number of <a href="https://www.jpost.com/tags/druze">Druze</a> towns lead the country in matriculation eligibility including Peki'in, with the highest rate (98.7%) in Israel, Hurfeish (97.1%) and Beit Jan (96.2%).</div><div>Ariel (97.7%), Kiryat Ekron (96.6%), Givat Shmuel (96.5%), Elkana (95.6%), Kaukab Abu al-Hija (94.5%), Tzura-Kadima (94.2%) and Ramat Hasharon (93.9%) were also in the top ten in Israel.</div><div>Modi'in Illit, a haredi city in the West Bank, had the lowest matriculation rate in Israel at only 4.7%, followed by Bnei Brak (95), Beitar Illi (15.9%), Rehasim (25.5%), Jisr az-Zarqa (31.5%), Tel Sheba (36.7%), Hazor HaHagalilit (37.1%), Segev Shalom (38.6%), Elad (39.6%) and Ofakim (47.4%).</div><template async="" id="4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6"> cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); });</template><div>Some 46 high schools in Israel achieved 100% matriculation eligibility. Most of these schools were state Jewish-religious schools. Five of the schools were religious-ecclesiastical schools in the Arab sector and nine of the schools were general state schools.</div><div>A number of the schools that achieved 100% matriculation eligibility have acceptance requirements and charge thousands of shekels in tuition payments.</div><div>The Education Ministry also published a ranking of schools based on the percentage of students who earned an "outstanding" matriculation certificate, which means that they learnt five units of English and at least four units of Math with an average grade of 90. The students must also achieve excellence in a program for personal development and social-community involvement.</div><div>The Darchei Noam Jewish-religious school for girls led the list of schools concerning "outstanding" matriculation certificates and was joined by six additional Jewish-religious schools for girls in the top 17 schools in this regard.</div><div>The Al-Qasemi Academy in Baqa-El-Gharbia ranked in second place in this regard and was joined by four other schools in the Arab sector and one school in the Druze sector in the top 17. Four general state schools ranked within the top 17 as well.</div><div>On Tuesday, the Education Ministry published a list of 755 "outstanding" high schools based on a number of paramaters including special education, IDF enlistment, civil services, matriculation eligibility and improvement.</div><div>Some 48% of the schools on the list were Jewish-state schools, 32% were Jewish-religious schools, 7% were in the Arab sector, 3.5% were haredi schools, 2.3% were Druze schools and 2.3% were Bedouin schools.</div><div>Eight out of the top ten outstanding schools were Jewish-religious schools.</div><div>The outstanding schools were split into four levels, with teachers in each school receiving grants based on the level the school achieved ranging from NIS 3,119 to NIS 8,318.</div>
BANJUL –hunger – Africa is becoming a new COVID-19 epicentre. In the recent weeks, South Africa reported a 60% increase in natural deaths, suggesting a higher COVID death toll than reported. And the World Health Organization recently warned that cases are proliferating across Sub-Saharan Africa, including my country, The Gambia. Unless the European Union urgently rethinks its protectionist trade policies – beginning with the Common Agricultural Policy – a sharp uptick in food insecurity will turn the COVID-19 crisis into a catastrophe.
The CAP subsidizes European farmers to the tune of €42 billion ($50 billion) annually, thereby giving them an unfair advantage in foreign markets, such as Africa. As a report released by the NGO network Coordination SUD last year showed, such subsidies, together with the abolition of market-regulation mechanisms (such as milk quotas), have strengthened EU producers’ ability to export agricultural products at low prices to markets in the Global South.
Such policies distort markets, destabilize developing-country economies, and destroy livelihoods. For example, the CAP has devastated agricultural production in West Africa, particularly for wheat and milk powder. And the problem extends far beyond Africa: local industry and agriculture in Caribbean and Pacific countries have been undermined as well.
The EU’s protectionist policies mean that developing-country farmers, who have access to significantly less support, cannot compete with European imports. In fact, though 60% of Sub-Saharan Africans are smallholder farmers, a staggering 80% of local food needs are met by imports. EU subsidies to its own farmers, along with what the UN Food and Agriculture Organization describes as “unfair trade agreements,” have enabled EU farmers to undersell African farmers dramatically. This protectionist stifling of local producers partly explains why, even before the pandemic, half of Africa’s population faced food insecurity.
Last month, there was a glimmer of hope that the EU was finally rethinking the CAP, at least within Europe. One proposal that was put forward focused on helping small farmers in Europe by expanding community-supported agricultural (CSA) schemes, which directly connect farmers to consumers. Proposed reforms also reflected criticisms of industrial animal farming and trade in livestock over long distances – practices that facilitate the emergence and spread of viral infections similar to COVID-19.
But this approach once again remains inherently detrimental to African producers, who would continue to be subject to EU protectionism in the guise of “free trade.” It is precisely in regions like West Africa, where a large number of smallholder farmers are currently being crowded out of the market by protectionist policies, that CSA schemes would be particularly valuable.
What is needed from the EU is a fairer, more holistic approach that accounts for the effects of its policies on African farmers. In the meantime, European policymakers have shelved the proposals until at least the end of 2022, owing to the pandemic.
Making matters worse, to increase its own crisis stockpiles, the EU is preparing to limit food exports. This could directly constrain Africa’s food supply without supporting African farmers, compounding disruptions to global food-supply chains, while placing additional pressure on smallholder farmers.
The CAP is not the only EU policy that is devastating developing-country agriculture. Its 2019 ban on palm-oil imports, ostensibly implemented to prevent deforestation, is similarly misguided.
A blanket ban on palm oil – a common food product also used in biofuels – may simply shift demand to less efficient, more land-intensive agricultural products, such as sunflower and rapeseed oil, resulting in even higher rates of deforestation and greater environmental strain. (Some policy experts believe that this is the point: despite the guise of environmentalism, the ban is fundamentally a protectionist effort aimed at boosting the EU’s own oilseed industries.)
Whatever the motivation, there is no doubt that the ban devastates the livelihoods of smallholder farmers, who comprise 50% of palm-oil producers. Add to that the decline in overall demand caused by the COVID-19 crisis, and smallholder farmers in Malaysia – one of the world’s largest palm-oil producers – are facing a veritable “survival crisis,” despite the tremendous progress the country has made in ensuring sustainable production.
Again, there is some evidence that the EU is rethinking its approach. But the needed changes are far from guaranteed.
As the COVID-19 crisis escalates in Africa, the economic, social, and, eventually, political fallout will be significant. The harmful effects of poorly conceived policies and practices will intensify and multiply. And, in lieu of strong action, millions of people will go hungry.
If the EU really wants to help Africa, during the pandemic and beyond, it must urgently reform its trade policies to ensure a level playing field and enhance food security. We are all in this crisis together. We in West Africa hope that we will not be left alone in addressing it.
epa09525768 A hospital staff carries two fresh oxygen reserves at the Covid-19 section of National Institute of Pneumology 'Marius Nasta', in Bucharest, Romania, 15 October 2021. Romania registered on 15 October 365 coronavirus related deaths, the highest number of daily deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. About 18,000 patients are hospitalized, of which 1,729 in intensive care units, in the entire country. Romanian health authorities are overwhelmed by the outbreak of the fourth wave, as the number of infected people with SARS-CoV-2 are rising from one day to another. EPA/ROBERT GHEMENT
Rehabilitation needed by every two out of three COVID-19 patients recovering from intensive care – The story of Samantha
The first thing you notice about Samantha, a Community National Health Service (NHS) Physiotherapist in Bournemouth in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is her beaming smile, energy and passion for her work. Her outstanding professionalism and capabilities mean that it takes most people she meets a while to notice her disability. Four years ago, Samantha fell 50 m off the side of a mountain in Austria while sledding, sustaining a brain injury and multiple fractures to her spine. Months of rehabilitation were needed for her physical, cognitive and speech difficulties which earned her huge gains, but limitations with her right arm movements are permanent. She says, “I have adapted and deliver the same high standard of care anyone else could.”
Samantha delivers rehabilitation to individuals that experienced injury, surgery, illness, or a fall. Many of Samantha’s current patients are recovering from COVID-19. Data from the United Kingdom’s chartered Society of Physiotherapy shows that 62% of COVID-19 patients who were in intensive care will need rehabilitation once they return home. After the acute rehabilitation phase in hospital, rehabilitation may continue in long-term care or at home.
Rehabilitation is key to improving the functioning and quality of life of a person affected by COVID-19 while reducing potential long-term disability. WHO’s Regional Office for Europe has published “Support for Rehabilitation Self-Management after COVID-19 related illness” which advises on exercises and activities to empower and facilitate recovery after discharge from hospital, which Samantha says is an “extremely useful resource for the provision of rehabilitation services to people recovering from COVID-19”.
To ensure patient needs are met and the continuation of vital rehabilitation services in the community, infection prevention and control measures have been implemented. Samantha says, “Before entering a patient’s home, I clean my hands, then put on my apron, then my mask, eye protection, and finally my gloves. The use of each type of personal protective equipment is based on the risk of exposure to body fluids, which I conduct every time I see a patient. I’ve been vigorously washing my hands.”
As for many with disabilities, Samantha has found adhering to infection prevention and control measures difficult. “I couldn’t fit the medical mask myself as I can’t lift my arm to the back of my head to tie the knot needed to secure it in place. I had to ask for masks with elastic ties I can fit with just one hand. I also have to tie the aprons at the side rather than at the back as I can’t reach and it’s a struggle to put the gloves on. All of this takes time, so I have to allow myself more time in my planning.” Samantha finds the WHO issued COVID-19 guidance for those with disability useful to prevent and mitigate the risk of COVID-19 and elaborates, “It helps me as a rehabilitation professional with disability to do my job properly.”
Samantha describes an elderly patient suspected to have COVID-19 which she treated. “Burt is an elderly gentleman with dementia who was referred because he was finding it difficult to walk, felt like he had a lot of mucus in his lungs, and had a temperature. He was already having daily visits from his primary health doctor and carers were visiting him three times a day to help with personal care.” Burt did not want to go to hospital for treatment, so his family and the medical team jointly decided to care for him at home. Samantha provided a walker and advised his family on exercises Burt could follow to clear his chest secretions and maintain his mobility. She also facilitated the installation of a downstairs hospital bed and commode. Burt recovered, thanks to the efforts and services of the community team and his family.
“No one ever questions my ability to do my job because of my disability. Most people don’t even notice,” says Samantha. “Once I have explained what I’ve been through and overcome, they are usually in shock and awe. My patients trust and work so much harder with me because I’ve been through it myself. I love being a rehabilitation professional and having a positive impact on someone’s life.” Samantha’s passion to overcome challenges from disability isn’t just limited to her professional life. Samantha has found ways to ski, rock climb and swim. Her ultimate goal is to climb Mount Everest, the highest point in the world!
Pope Francis opened his catechesis on Wednesday by inviting the faithful to “accept the gift of hope that comes from Christ”, especially during the pandemic, in which “so many risk losing hope”. The Pope explained that it is Christ who “helps us to navigate the tumultuous waters of sickness, death and injustice, which do not have the last word on our final destination”.
Pope Francis went on to note that many social inequalities have been “highlighted and aggravated” by the pandemic: many children are unable to continue receiving their education, people are unable to continue their work from home, and many nations cannot issue money to deal with the emergency.
“These symptoms of inequality reveal a social disease” said the Pope: “a virus that comes from a sick economy…the result of unequal economic growth, which is independent of fundamental human values”.
“In today’s world, very few rich people possess more than the rest of humanity. It is an injustice that cries out to heaven!”
Reflecting the design of Creation
This “sin of wanting to possess and dominate our brothers and sisters, nature and God Himself” is not the design of Creation, said the Pope.
Pope Francis reminded the faithful that God gave the earth “to all of us” to care for and cultivate. He asked us to dominate the earth in His name, cultivating and tending it like a garden, “the garden of all”.
This garden must be “kept and preserved”, continued the Pope. It must not be abused of “to make the land what you want it to be”. The Pope stressed that “it has been given by God to all mankind and so it is our duty to ensure that its fruits reach everyone, not just some”.
Political authorities
Pope Francis went on the stress that in order to ensure that what we possess “brings value to the community”, political authorities have the right and the duty to “regulate the legitimate exercise of the right to property according to the common good”.
Although “property and money are instruments that can serve the mission”, we easily turn them into “individual or collective” ends, said the Pope. When this happens, he explained, essential human values are undermined. “We forget that, being created in God’s image and likeness, we are social beings, creative and supportive, with an immense capacity to love”.
“With our gaze fixed on Jesus and with the certainty that His love works through the community of His disciples, we must all act together in the hope of generating something different and better. Christian hope, rooted in God, is our nostalgia for God. It supports the will to share, strengthening our mission as disciples of Christ, Who has shared everything with us”.
The Pope concluded, saying that that if we take care of the goods that the Creator gives us, and if we share what we possess so that no one is lacking, then indeed “we can inspire hope to regenerate a more healthy and equal world”.
Finally, Pope Francis invited the faithful to “think about the children”, so many of whom are suffering due to this unjust system. Many are dying, hungry, lacking the opportunity to gain an education. After the crisis, he stressed, we must be better.
COMMENT | Dr Bruce Tumwine Rwabasonga | Ugandan election — Highly publicized media images of the European Union delegates visiting opposition leaders in Uganda have been shared widely across social media over the last couple of weeks. While these would not have raised a lot of eyebrows at any other time, these images have garnered the public’s attention as they come a few months ahead of upcoming national elections.
The EU team visited the ANT party this week. They earlier visited other political groups
In addition, unlike most diplomatic talks which either are tightly muted or covered transparently with media releases and press conferences, these have been different as despite being conducted in the public eye, the purpose and content discussed has been kept private thus far.
These meetings have also come at a time when awareness on two contextually related issues, Black Lives Matter movement and foreign interference in national elections have been elevated into the world’s consciousness. These two issues as well as the public display but private nature of these visits, pose a question – is the European Union delegation exerting undue influence on the upcoming national elections in Uganda or are these innocuous talks that the public shouldn’t read a lot into?
Role of foreign players in elections
The Special Counsel Investigation commonly known as the Mueller probe in 2019 exposed how significant the threat of a foreign player can be in any election.
As revealed in the Mueller probe report and congressional hearings, foreign interference in the 2016 US election was suspected to have been done with nefarious methods that ranged from hacking the computer servers of the Democratic National Committee to leaking of incriminating emails from the Clinton campaign. Other techniques that were done with varying levels of success included attempts to penetrate the election systems and databases of several US states as well as the much more documented social media misinformation campaigns that included Facebook ads and ‘troll farms’ propagating ‘false news’ stories.
This threat posed by foreign entities in an election, should be an area of concern as Uganda doesn’t have the resources that the US has, and that ended up being insufficient to withstand the foreign interference in its election.
Another related contextual issue is the Black Lives Matter movement.
As the world grappled with the unjust killing of Freddie Gray, the Black Lives Movement took front and center and forced people across the world particularly in white majority societies to analyze the systemic and structural factors that for generations have led to subjugation and oppression of black people in those nations.
One thing that became obvious as the conversation continued, was that this same subjugation and oppression of black people did exist within black majority nations too. In a 6/23/20 Financial Times article, Patrick Gathara writes the following paragraph that captures the essence of this discussion. “Less has been said about the racism inherent in the existing international order and the obstacles faced by black-majority nations. In principle, all nations have equal sovereignty; in practice, they have anything but. A racial hierarchy is clearly evident, with white nations at the top of the ladder, those of black Africa at the bottom….”.
All this said, the European Union remains the largest donor to Africa and by extension has bought itself a seat at Africa’s decision-making table.
With this ‘seat at the table’ comes responsibility to both African leaders and the European Union delegates alike to adhere to the ‘partnership’ guiding principles that are spelled out in the ‘post-Cotonou framework’ and the Joint Africa-EU Strategy.
For now, all Africans ought to be cautious and wary of the impact of this ‘partnership’ on the future of the continent. This concern is best described by Wandia Njoya, a Kenyan academic, who says the following on the status of the current ‘partnership’. “They basically say ‘I am superior to you and for you to be like me you have to do what I say and then I approve whether you are like me or not’.”
Echoes from the past
She goes on to say that in this way, the western world ‘partnership’ with Africa should be viewed as ‘rebranding of the civilizing mission of colonialism’. It is hard to argue against her assessment given the evidence seen in such visits in Uganda recently and other similar historical interactions.
As one looked at the images from the visit, one couldn’t help but wonder how much the precolonial visits by the then would be colonialists to tribal kings like King Kabalega and King Mwanga resembled these visits.
In the images, one can see a fleet of luxury SUVs, a number of pristinely dressed white people disembarking from cars with briefcases that one can assume carry important documents. From the serious looks on their faces and the officious air they carry, it is obvious that the importance of these talks haven’t been lost upon them.
One can’t help but wonder, is this the same pomp that the precolonial delegation arrived with to meet tribal kings? What was discussed and what promises were made in these talks? Will these talks have generational ramifications that Ugandans didn’t sign up for – as the historical ones did?
To all these questions, only opposition leaders and the EU delegation alone know the answers and without full transparency and disclosure of what was discussed, Ugandans will never know for sure what these discussions about the nation’s future entailed.
Dr. Rwabasonga is a Ugandan based in Washington, DC. He is a physician, public health professional and healthcare services consultant .
AYNI, Tajikistan (TCA) — In the frame of its activities for environmental protection within the EU-funded project “Enhancing Water and Natural Resources Management and Protection in upper catchments of Zarafshon Watershed” the Italian organization Cesvi, being implementing partner of the Welthungerhilfe Consortium, collaborates with the local population in the target area for the establishment of improved waste management systems. The system that was set up and opened for usage in the area of Shome near Shurmashk village links now the four villages Pinyon, Shurmashk, Pasrud and Marghuzor to the final waste disposal site with a capacity for about 400 cubic meters of household waste, the Delegation of the European Union to Tajikistan reported.
Cesvi staff provided trainings for the village population on waste segregation and separate composting of organic waste in the frame of the planning process for the establishment of the improved waste management system, while being also in charge for the supervision of the construction of the waste deposit site in early 2020, aiming at reducing the unplanned disposal of household waste along the river sides and therefore also reducing the negative impact of such waste onto the health of local population.
The population of the four villages with support of Cesvi decided to conduct a public cleaning campaign in each village to initiate the opening and use of the established waste deposit site and the system in general. The population gathered dispersed waste in the villages and along river banks, and partly brought their household waste to be transported to the final disposal site. Approximately three cubic meters of waste was collected in the four villages and disposed at the new disposal site.
JERUSALEM (RNS) — Throughout high school, Adina Levin, 17, dreamed about spending a gap year in Israel studying at an Orthodox Jewish seminary.
Then COVID-19 hit.
“I was worried the seminary would cancel for the coming year, but it hasn’t,” said Levin, a recent high school graduate and resident of Walnut Creek, California.
Despite its continuing entry ban on all but a few noncitizens, in July the Israeli government decided to allow some 17,000 foreign students — including 12,000 mostly American Orthodox yeshiva and seminary students on their gap year — to enter the country, under strict COVID-19 protocols.
Among them is Levin, who starts classes in September.
She’s glad to be in Israel but had worried that the program’s usual field trips and even Shabbat meals with Israeli families may be curtailed due to Israel’s ever-changing COVID-19 restrictions.
After speaking with some students who had been to the seminary under lockdown during the past academic year, she was reassured that things would work out fine.
“They said the experience wasn’t quite the same, but still great,” Levin said.
Allowing students like Levin into the country has been controversial. Israel is struggling to contain the coronavirus and is denying many requests for family reunification.
Some lawmakers accused the government of caving in to pressure from ultra-Orthodox political parties, which threatened to bring down the government if the students weren’t allowed into the country.
“Why are yeshiva students and (other) students allowed over relatives of Israeli citizens?” parliamentarian Merav Michaeli, a member of the opposition Labor party, tweeted.
Aryeh Deri, from the Orthodox Shas party, defended the move.
“A mother does not tell her children that she doesn’t have the strength to host them,” Deri told Channel 12, an Israeli news channel.
Orthodox gap year programs in Israel are a rite of passage for thousands of diaspora high school graduates, who want to immerse themselves in Jewish studies, holy sites and Israeli hummus.
Partitions separate columns of Kerem B’Yavneh yeshiva students in the study hall. Photo courtesy of Kerem B’Yavneh
Seminary and yeshiva students who study in Israel “experience a lot of religious and emotional growth that can’t be replicated anywhere else,” said Suzanne Cohen, director of Israel guidance at the Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School for Girls in Teaneck, New Jersey.
Cohen, whose own daughter will be spending the year at an Israel seminary, said she trusts that Israel and the gap year programs will do everything in their power to keep the students safe.
Dov Lipman, a former Knesset member who pushed for the students’ entry, said both Israel and the students benefit from the experience.
Gap year and other youth programs annually contribute $200 million to the Israeli economy, and the students return home “strengthened in their religious faith and supportive of Israel,” Lipman said.
“Of course there have to be strict rules, and if the programs can’t hold students to the highest standard of safety there have to be very strict ramifications, including shutting down the programs,” Lipman said.
Rabbi Shalom Rosner, a leading rabbi at the Kerem B’Yavneh yeshiva south of Tel Aviv, said 83 overseas students there will need to remain in quarantine for 14 days, in groups of six, as soon as they arrive in Israel.
While the overseas students would ordinarily mix with the yeshiva’s Israeli students, that likely won’t happen, at least for a while.
“That’s a pity because both thrive on getting to know each other,” he said.
Dina Blank, executive director of Machon Ma’ayan, a seminary for Orthodox young women from the diaspora in central Israel, said leaders of gap year programs have been working hard on COVID-19 precautions.
“To the parents, I’d say: Everyone in the industry is dedicated and determined to take care of their children. We take the responsibility very seriously,” Blank said.
All of Machon Ma’ayan’s students will arrive on Sept. 2 and quarantine in groups of six, with each “pod” having its own shower and bathroom. Meals will be delivered to and laundry collected outside their door.
The seminary’s staff already has experience teaching during the pandemic. In March, 17 of the of the seminary’s 50 students decided to stay in Israel — under lockdown. The rest returned to their home countries.
Machon Ma’ayan seminary students pose at a farm where they volunteered after COVID-19 lockdown restrictions were eased in Israel. In March, when the Israeli government imposed a COVID-19 lockdown, most of the students at the Machon Ma’ayan seminary in Israel flew to their home countries. Photo courtesy of Machon Ma’ayan
“Running in the midst of COVID had its challenges,” Blank said. “But it also afforded us a great opportunity to learn how to keep students quarantined and social distancing while continuing to learn and grow.”
Last June, when the government lifted restrictions, the seminary managed to take its students on an overnight hike and brought them to a farm, where they picked produce for struggling farmers.
Given the uncertainty caused by the virus, some prospective students took the difficult decision to stay home this year.
“I realized that if I came to Israel now I probably wouldn’t be able to experience 90% of the things I was looking forward to doing and seeing,” said an 18-year-old American who requested anonymity because he is the only one of his friends to cancel his trip. “I know I’ll be coming in a year or two, maybe on a semester abroad at an Israeli university.”
Avi Weinreb, a yeshiva student who flew back to Los Angeles just before Israel sealed its borders in March due to COVID-19, will be spending the coming year – his third – in Israel.
He plans to return this fall to serve as a counselor to first-year students at the Aish HaTorah yeshiva in Jerusalem. Weinreb hopes the time he spends in Israel this year will make up for what he missed out on during the pandemic.
“I feel like last year was cut short, and I feel like I still need to experience some growth and guidance in my life. I know I’ll get this in yeshiva. I love being in Israel and probably see myself having a future there.”
