Deri demands passage this week of Basic Law enshrining Torah study, drawing backlash amid Iran fighting

Ultra-Orthodox Shas party chair Aryeh Deri continues to demand that legislation enshrining Torah study as a Basic Law be brought to a vote this week, not despite but because of Iranian ballistic missile attacks overnight and this morning, which sent millions of Israelis rushing to bomb shelters and forced the nationwide closure of schools for the first time in two months.

Speaking at the party’s weekly faction meeting, Deri says that “precisely at a time when the people of Israel need greater help to help ensure success in the campaign against our enemies, we are demanding that the Basic Law: Torah Study be brought to a vote this week as a condition for supporting any other legislation,” calling the legislation a declaration of the “contribution of Torah scholars to the people of Israel and its security.”

The proposed law, also backed by Haredi party United Torah Judaism, would establish Torah study as a foundational national value and define long-term Torah study as “meaningful service” to the state, equivalent to army service, with implications for the rights and obligations of those engaged in it.

The move marks the latest effort by Haredi parties to preserve exemptions from military service for yeshiva students, which the High Court of Justice has deemed unconstitutional, and to reinstate state stipends that have been halted to families of draft dodgers. The parties have repeatedly threatened to bring down the government over its failure to pass legislation on the matter.

Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot criticizes the coalition’s efforts to advance the legislation at a time “when many Israeli citizens sat in bomb shelters today and our soldiers are fighting and risking their lives,” saying that “the prime minister who sent them to war is working to pass a Basic Law that would grant equal rights to IDF fighters and Torah students.”

“In Netanyahu’s government, it pays to be a draft dodger — it’s both safer and more profitable,” he adds.

Former prime minister and leader of the Together slate Naftali Bennett denounces the proposal as a “draft-evasion law on steroids” being advanced under the “cynical and false” name of Torah study.

Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, the former chair of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, ousted over his refusal to advance draft-exemption legislation for yeshiva students, likewise condemns the legislation, calling it “a blatant desecration of God’s name” and “a profound moral distortion.”