From the Liveblog of
Sunday, February 8, 2026
Committee negotiations on Haredi draft exemption bill have stalled, source says
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. 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"
Behind-the-scenes negotiations between the ultra-Orthodox factions and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Likud MK Boaz Bismuth and legal adviser Miri Frenkel Shor have stalled and “have nowhere to go,” threatening the timely passage of the 2026 state budget, a source in the United Torah Judaism party’s Agudat Yisrael faction tells The Times of Israel.
“There’s no advancement,” the source states, while another party source states that Frenkel Shor is currently meeting with Shas negotiator Ariel Attias.
The United Torah Judaism source does not respond when asked what issues are still unresolved.
The parties are involved in intense discussions after the ultra-Orthodox Shas party last week blocked a vote splitting the annual Arrangements Law from a package of economic reforms being pushed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich as part of the state budget in order to protest the lack of speed at which the coalition’s bill exempting yeshiva students from conscription is advancing.
Further delays could complicate the timeline for approving the budget, which must pass three readings by the end of March in order to prevent the dissolution of the Knesset, triggering early elections three months later. Elections are currently slated to be held by late October.
Ultra-Orthodox representatives are pushing back hard against changes demanded by committee legal adviser Shor, who has expressed significant criticism of the bill and called for the addition of several amendments to the legislation that are opposed by the Haredim.
She has previously warned that the bill violates the principle of equality and fails to meet security needs. She has also called to reexamine a clause ending sanctions at age 26 and argued that by effectively resetting the status of yeshiva students who ignored call-up orders over the past year, the legislation would grant legal immunity to Haredim but not to non-Haredi evaders.
According to the Haredi press, one of the key sticking points is Frenkel Shor’s opposition to a clause in the bill allowing an advisory committee to lower recruitment targets should its members feel that insufficient Haredi-oriented tracks have been established in the IDF. Haredi lawmakers have also objected to Frenkel Shor’s call to pass the law “as a temporary provision for a maximum period of five years.”
Lawmakers voted in favor of the budget and the Arrangements Law in their first readings late last month, following a a two-day delay caused by last-minute Haredi demands related to the exemption bill. The bills were supported by Shas and UTJ’s Degel HaTorah faction while the Agudat Yisrael faction opposed.
Lawmakers are scheduled to hold the next vote tomorrow but according to Yesh Atid MK Moshe Tur-Paz, an opposition representative on the committee, “there’s enormous pressure” on Frenkel Shor, “at least to say that the law is not ‘unconstitutional,’ meaning it may stand the test of the High Court. There are negotiations on various sections.”
The Times of Israel Community.