At a Torah Umesorah meeting yesterday, Rav Avrohom Fruchthandler, esteemed president of Yeshivas Rabbeinu Chaim Berlin and widely respected for ensuring his own rabbeim receive the highest salaries of any mosad, delivered a fiery appeal for change in how the Torah world values and compensates its mechanchim.
Speaking with his trademark passion and bluntness, Rav Fruchthandler decried the community’s complacency toward the financial struggles of melamdim and rabbeim, urging institutions to recognize the immense responsibility placed upon these educators and to ensure they are paid with the dignity their sacred work deserves. He explained that we’ve raised the bar and level in every facet of chinuch, except for compensation for mechanchim.
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{Matzav.com}
we need to make a kol koreh banning all these extravagant parties by askanim until chinuch is fairly compensated.
And mechanchos
so who shoud the two million dollars go to?
Mechanchim , or torah umsorah ?
in all fairness and everyone wants rabbeim to be able to live
fact check- rabbeim today are making between double & triple 3x what was a short 25 years ago
when u cheshbon parsonage and most mosdos help them stay on ” gute zachen” ( chelek ches, pei samech, uhc, and vouchers its equivalent of 200 gross, vehamaivin yovin
tution is thru the roof most families are paying 5x what was accepted 25 years ago ,
a melamed in willy making 60 a year is way better off than a baal habos in flatbush making 160
Stop! My parnassah went way down! Salaries have not increased 50% over the last 10 years the way tuition has. We are not all gevirim. So how should a guy like me pay more tuition? Attention all gevirim: put yourself in the shoes of a middle class struggling family for a month before telling everyone to give more and pay more. I appreciate all you do for the klal but “al todin es chaveircha ad shetagia limkom”.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
The gevirim and the rabbeim are the ones that could afford life today. The middle class is and were always the ones who have it the hardest. We get no breaks and we simply don’t earn enough to pay everything in full. No tuition breaks and no discounted camp fees and yt perks etc. There needs to be an organization like Chasdei Lev for non rabbeim maybe thru shuls? Most people can’t afford to make yt not just rabbeim. Not a month of yt in Tishrei or Pesach.
Each of the three frum billionaires sitting here could fix the problem on their own. Just saying.
It’s very nice. But the reality is that his institution has access to many gvirim and they raise many millions by thrur dinner every year. What about sone of the mosdos where the parent body is vast majority klei kodesh or yeshivaleit or even former yeshivaleit who now work but struggle financially. Where are they supposed to get the funds to do this. There are hundreds of millions of dollars being given to tzedakah ,but a lot of it goes to Eretz Yisroel and kollelim and wealthier mosdos. The poor local schools don’t get much of thos tzedakah funds.
You are all right! And so is Mr. Fruchthandler. Budgets are tight. But mechanchim and mechanchos are not wealthy. If you say salaries tripled over passed 35 years…yeah 35 years ago I got paid $12,000 for teaching 5 classes of high school. Yes now I make about $60,000 more, working a whole day. So yes it’s more, but I also have 8 children, some married and need support. And I don’t qualify for all the programs mentioned, nor do I get chasdei lev as I work in the English dept. So even though I earn more, it doesn’t cover more. Bottom line, mechanchim and mechanchos should be paid more. Not at the expense of the parents, though. A different system needs to be implemented. And one more thing…if mechanchim get a raise, please, besever panim yafos. Don’t make us feel like pariah. We don’t leave the office at 5 and don’t look back until the morning. I deal with school issues a whole night and weekends too. For your children.
Just remember: They pushed a raise program a couple years ago in which they pledged to cover a portion of the raise in a decreasing manner on an annual basis for a number of years. (Eg.80%, 60%, 40%, 20%)
The problem is that they couldn’t perform on their commitments and left many schools high and dry to the tune of millions of dollars apiece.
Now they have the chutzpah to try to pressure the schools to do what they tried and failed at?!
I get it that mechanchim deserve higher pay, and they do, but who is paying for it?
Parents are stretched thin, donors are strapped for cash…
In reality, I understand the push, but considering that they experienced how hard it is to raise the difference; a bit of humility is in order.
Hi Chevra
I hear your pain,may I throw out a suggestion, THINK MILWAUKEE under Harav Twerski Shlita
Free Tution from the government very low housing cost
Kol tuv
Besides everything everyone is mentioning, the free tuition that many of the teachers receive must alos be counted in their salary.
Additionally (even though they should all receive 100k), if you calculate the amount of hours put in daily (approx. 4 hours daily) plus the out-of-school hours put in, which is minimal for a teacher who has been teaching for several years already, the pay is pretty good. This is often supplemented by afternoon teaching jobs, kollel, tutoring and the like.
If I worked 4-5 hours daily, had off the same amount they do. Yom Tov, summer, Chanukka, mid winter etc. I could expect to make even 50k
Hold on. How much does Torah Umesorah pay their employees?
why can’t they cut other aspects of their budgets to pay the teachers more… do we need landscaping, school swag, etc. can the fundraising dinners have simpler menus? Can the schools ban designer shoes and bags to save everyone some cash?
Chinuch compensation, like any and every other field, is simple supply and demand economics.
It will never be a realistic conversation about budget and expenses for a Yeshiva when the conversation is with a table full of people who haven’t the foggiest ide of what it means to live paycheck to paycheck. If R’ Fruchthandler was only talking to the wealthy telling them they need to give more so the schools can pay more thats one thing. But if it means the schools budgets will go up translating to tuition going up then this is a horrible attack on the thoudsands of wonderful hard working ehrlicha parents who are suffering in so many ways because of the financial pressures. Until we get “REAL” with this it will not work.
Bottom line is that every Rebbi getting an annual salary of $75,000 is way way better off then any balabos getting $150,000. Factor in all the Rebbi gets in addition to salary, the tuition breaks, camp breaks, summer job income, assistance with simchos, chasdei lev, subsidy programs for mechanchim, camp breaks etc and put that up to the balabos who makes 150 but pays full tuition, camp – no breaks, no simcha assistance, no perks, no assistance, no chasdei lev, higher tax bracket etc. and it is clear the Rabbeim of today are doing better then most. Do the math.
Don’t make a 40 million dollar building for teh Yeshivos and Beis Yaakovs. It’s unacceptable. And yes the Mechanchim/os are paying the price–not because of the parents–but because of the nepo-babies of rich parents who because of their money feel that their offic and everything around them needs to be made out of gold and their yeshivos/schools need to be the size and look OF 40 million a pop. Cut it out.