After Jerusalem daycare tragedy, UTJ MK submits bill for free childcare for all toddlers

Following today’s tragedy in which two babies died and dozens of infants and toddlers were injured at an overcrowded, unlicensed daycare in Jerusalem, United Torah Judaism lawmaker Meir Porush announces that he has submitted a bill requiring the government to provide “free education for toddlers” across the board. Among the evacuated babies and toddlers from the daycare this morning was one of Porush’s great-grandchildren.

According to a statement released by Porush’s Shlomei Emunim sub-faction of Agudat Yisrael, one of the two factions making up the larger UTJ party, the “revolutionary bill will expand the Compulsory Education Law, and provide free and supervised education to all Israeli toddlers from the age of 3 months.”

“The purpose of the bill is to ensure that every toddler and child in Israel has a proper, high-quality education, regardless of their family’s financial situation,” the statement adds, explaining that it would apply to children from the age of 3 months and up and “that the State of Israel will bear full responsibility for financing, operating, and supervising early childhood education frameworks.”

The frameworks will be required “to meet pedagogical, safety and sanitary standards, and will operate under the supervision of the Education Ministry and other government ministries,” Shlomei Emunim says, adding that the bill will be considered by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation next Sunday.

Porush claimed earlier this month that withholding daycare subsidies from the families of draft evaders would cause “starvation” among Haredim and suggested that it might violate a United Nations human rights treaty.