Knesset panel approves NIS 80 million budget transfer for religious councils

The Knesset Finance Committee on Thursday approved a transfer of NIS 80 million ($24.2 million) to the Religious Services Ministry, as the government simultaneously moves to slash spending across ministerial budgets to fund ballooning wartime needs.

This follows the Knesset vote Wednesday to advance an across-the-board 3.35 percent cut to ministerial budgets starting next year, part of a NIS 31 billion ($9 billion) wartime spending package. Most of the additional funds will go to defense, with NIS 1.6 billion ($473 million) allocated for humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza.

Financial website Calcalist reported on Wednesday that in exchange for Shas’s support in passing the budget increase in the Knesset, the Religious Services Ministry, until recently controlled by the ultra-Orthodox Sephardic party, would receive tens of millions of shekels in additional funding.

This new budget transfer is on top of the government’s approval of NIS 40 million ($11.9 million) in state funding to ultra-Orthodox schools affiliated with Shas’s Bnei Yosef educational network.

Much of the new funding will go toward activities for religious councils, including establishing five new ones. These bodies provide jobs for political activists — particularly from the ultra-Orthodox party Shas — and funnel resources to religious institutions.

Funding will also go to the annual pilgrimage attended by thousands of religious Jews on Mount Meron on Lag Ba’Omer, housing expenses for Chief Rabbis, and other ministry activities.

“The religious councils are a political body effectively controlled by Shas,” said Rabbi Seth Farber, the head of the religious rights NGO ITIM. “The Ministry of Religious Services operates based on political interests and chooses to strengthen and expand the religious councils.”

“Instead of allowing the local authorities to manage religious services, the [Religious Services] Ministry transfers the budgets to religious councils that are subordinate to it and not to the local authority,” continued Farber.

Critics have long called for the religious councils to be shut down and their activities transferred to local municipalities.

The Religious Services Ministry has long been critical to Shas’s political power, overseeing funding for rabbis and religious councils across the country. It was held by Shas minister Michael Malkieli until the party bolted the government over the summer to protest its failure to pass a bill exempting yeshiva students from military service, but remained part of the coalition.

Its ministerial portfolios were temporarily handed to a pair of Likud ministers in the hopes that the party would return to government soon. The Religious Services Ministry remains under the management of Director-General Yehuda Avidan, a longtime confidant of Shas chairman Aryeh Deri, who continues to be a key lever of influence for the party.

In November, then-minister Shas MK Michael Malkieli attempted to push through regulations granting his office authority to appoint municipal rabbis, but the effort collapsed after petitions were filed with the High Court of Justice.

The establishment of new councils, backed by Thursday’s transfer, provides an alternative channel for Shas to extend its influence over religious appointments.

Alongside the Religious Services Ministry transfer, the committee also approved NIS 144 million for the Prime Minister’s Office, largely earmarked for programs in minority communities and northern localities, and NIS 110 million for the Ministry of Science, Culture and Sport, including funding for the Israel Antiquities Authority and heritage projects in Jerusalem.