From the Liveblog of
Sunday, November 3, 2024
Bennett: ‘Anti-Zionist’ daycare subsidies bill for Haredi men who defy draft is ‘shameful’
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"
In an extended post on Twitter this morning, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett decries as “shameful” a bill that would preserve daycare subsidies for members of the ultra-Orthodox community who defy draft orders, arguing that it would “take money from those who serve and move it into the pockets of those who evade.”
Previously the law allowed families in which a mother works and a father who studies full time in yeshiva in lieu of military service to receive the subsidies, worth thousands of shekels a month for ultra-Orthodox families.
The attorney general declared the arrangement illegal after the High Court of Justice ruled in June that ultra-Orthodox men are obligated to enlist in the IDF and that financial support for such students was also illegal by extension.
“Make a note: if this disgraceful law passes, none of our ultra-Orthodox brothers will enlist,” Bennett states, adding that while he had previously supported exemptions in order to integrate the ultra-Orthodox into the workforce, “since the war we are in a completely new reality: “The IDF needs 20,000 soldiers.”
“The only reason this devastating law is being promoted now is because [United Torah Judaism chairman Yitzhak ] Goldknopf issued a political ultimatum,” Bennett continues, calling the bill “an anti-Zionist law.”
