From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
Gafni: Smotrich cutting funds for Haredim while leaving budget for settlements untouched
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"
MK Moshe Gafni, chairman of the ultra-Orthodox Degel HaTorah party, slams Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich after details of a contentious telephone call between the two are leaked to the press.
In the call, Gafni, who until recently served as chair of the Knesset Finance Committee, accused Smotrich of collaborating with the legal system to cut the ultra-Orthodox community’s budgets, prompting the minister to hit back that he is “not willing to work under threats,” the Ynet news site reported.
“Don’t talk to me about distress while we are dealing with your stupid remarks against military conscription and (my national religious) community is filling the cemeteries,” Smotrich declared, referring to ultra-Orthodox demands that Haredi yeshiva students be exempted from military service.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is set to approve an NIS 31 billion ($9 billion) increase to the 2025 state budget today. According to the Kan public broadcaster, an increase in defense spending will be coupled with across-the-board cuts to ministerial budgets (save for the Defense Ministry). Included in these cuts are 481 million shekels ($142 million) in taxpayer money set aside for Haredi schools’ eventual inclusion in the government’s New Horizon program, which funds work in small groups between teachers and pupils and bumps up teacher salaries, among other initiatives.
The program is currently restricted to state schools and does not apply to independent Haredi institutions, which do not teach secular subjects. The money is currently frozen until it can eventually be allocated.
A statement attributed to “Gafni’s associates” released by the MK’s spokesman following the Ynet report complains that it took “less than three minutes” following the end of the call for Smotrich to “leak parts of the conversation to the media” in a way that “cynically” characterized their disagreement on the costs of the ongoing war in Gaza.
According to the statement, during the call, Gafni told Smotrich that “you never take or cut funds from the national religious education budgets or from the Settlement Ministry — only from Haredi education. Only from Haredi teachers are you cutting endlessly. I will not agree to this.”
In a statement earlier this afternoon, Gafni appeared to threaten to vote in the Knesset against increases to the defense budget.
The Times of Israel Community.