AG orders daycare funding cut for ultra-Orthodox students who defy draft orders

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara sends a letter to Labor Minister Yoav Ben-Tzur ordering him to cut funding for daycare for the children of ultra-Orthodox students who refuse to obey draft orders into the military.

The order comes after the IDF last week moved to begin drafting some 3,000 Haredim, in line with a High Court ruling that there is no longer legal justification to avoid doing so.

However, only 48 of the 900 who received draft orders showed up amid large-scale protests, the military said.

“The conclusion is that there is no longer any justification to fund the daycare as an incentive for the Torah studies for those who are designated for military service, but have not showed up to be drafted,” she writes.

Baharav-Miara adds that the move will start from the upcoming school year.

The draft orders are the first stage in the screening and evaluation process that the army carries out for new recruits, ahead of their enlistment in the military.

Last month, the High Court ruled that there was no longer any legal framework allowing the state to refrain from drafting Haredi yeshiva students into military service, and the attorney general ordered the government to immediately begin the process of conscription for 3,000 such men — the number the military has said it is able to process at this preliminary stage.

Prominent ultra-Orthodox rabbis have urged yeshiva students to ignore any communication from the IDF, and parties that represent the Haredi community have escalated threats to leave the coalition if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government fails to pass a law to largely exempt Haredi men from military service.

The dispute over the ultra-Orthodox community serving in the military is one of the most contentious in Israel, with decades of governmental and judicial attempts to settle the issue never reaching a stable resolution. The Haredi religious and political leadership fiercely resists and protests any effort to draft young men.