Cabinet approves over NIS 1 billion in coalition funds for Haredim, of a total NIS 5b
Items approved include $350 million for yeshivas, $2.2 million for groups that arrange IDF exemptions for Haredi students, $6.9 million for Jewish National Identity Authority
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government approved the allocation of NIS 5 billion ($1.3 billion) in coalition funds on Tuesday evening, less than a month before the legal deadline for the passage of the 2025 state budget.
The cabinet vote was held without Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is on a visit to Washington. Coalition funds are money allocated during the budget-planning process based on agreements struck between the parties during coalition negotiations.
In addition to over a billion shekels for yeshivas, various Haredi institutions and causes received hundreds of millions in additional funding, as did, to a lesser extent, national religious causes.
Among the items approved were NIS 25 million ($6.9 million) for far-right anti-LGBT politician Avi Maoz’s Jewish National Identity Authority, NIS 94 million ($25.9 million) for the World Zionist Organization’s settlement division and NIS 40 million ($11 million) for security in West Bank settlements.
NIS 1.27 billion ($351 million) was approved for ultra-Orthodox yeshivas, NIS 75 million ($20.7 million) for Haredi women’s seminaries, NIS 87 million ($24 million) for strengthening Jewish identity, NIS 60 million ($16.5 million) for yeshivas for overseas students, and NIS 2.9 million ($792,000) for matters relating to Jewish “family purity” laws.
The coalition funds also include NIS 28 million ($7.7 million) for programs to prevent Haredim from dropping out of yeshivas and NIS 8 million ($2.2 million) for “coordination and liaison bodies” — a reference to groups that arrange military exemptions.
Speaking with The Times of Israel on Tuesday, a spokesman for Haim Biton (Shas), a minister within the Education Ministry, said that this last item included money for the Vaad HaYeshivot (Yeshiva Committee), which until recently was the Haredi community’s primary vehicle for coordination between ultra-Orthodox yeshivas and the Defense Ministry in matters of military service deferments.
However, he said that it would only receive funding if the Knesset manages to pass a law providing military service exemptions for yeshiva students.
“For now, the money is on the shelf. You can’t touch it,” he said.
Last week, Housing Minister Yitzchak Goldknopf, the Haredi UTJ party chairman, threatened to oppose the 2025 state budget — a move that would topple the government — unless the yeshiva allocations went through.
It was Goldknopf’s second threat to the continued stability of the coalition in less than a week, and the latest in a string of Haredi ultimatums that so far have not been followed through on.
In a letter to Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs published by the Ynet news site, Goldknopf complained that while Netanyahu and Smotrich had recently promised him the money, it was not included in a list of coalition funds set to be approved by the cabinet.
Goldknopf called on Fuchs to rectify the situation “immediately” in order to ensure his support for the budget in the Knesset. Despite this, according to Hebrew press reports, the Hasidic minister was upset that the coalition funds would not be added the base budget and thus voted against them in the end.
The 2025 state budget must be passed by the end of March or the government will automatically fall, triggering early elections.
Asked by a reporter about Goldknopf’s threat during the Religious Zionism party’s faction weekly meeting in the Knesset on Monday, Smotrich condemned his coalition partner’s “false populist campaign,” asserting that he had failed to obtain military conscription exemptions for yeshiva students and “is now looking for a way to explain to [his] public that there are no budgetary achievements.”
In a statement on Tuesday afternoon, Goldknopf called on fellow coalition leaders to back his party’s funding demands, insisting that the “basic rights” of yeshiva students, children and families “cannot be violated” and arguing that the Haredi community was in danger of being “left behind.”
According to the Maariv daily, Goldknopf is believed to be planning to resign before the final budget votes in the Knesset despite opposition from members of his party’s Degel Hatorah faction, who prefer to wait until after the passage of the budget if no law exempting yeshiva students from military service is passed.
