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Sunday, September 7, 2025
Haredi faction denies it agreed to support revised budget boosting defense spending
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"
Degel HaTorah chairman Mosher Gafni denies that his faction had agreed to support a revised 2025 budget significantly increasing defense spending. Degel HaTorah is one of two factions comprising the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party.
“Contrary to various reports, no decision was made regarding the vote on the budget later this week in the Knesset,” Gafni, who chaired the Knesset Finance Committee until UTJ left the coalition over a dispute involving military exemptions for yeshiva students, says in a statement.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government last month voted to approve a NIS 31 billion ($9 billion) increase to the 2025 state budget, NIS 1.6 billion ($473 million) of which will go toward humanitarian aid for Gaza. The increase will primarily go toward defense spending and will be accompanied by an across-the-board cut of 3.35 percent of ministerial budgets set to go into effect at the beginning of next year.
UTJ criticized the proposed budget amendments, railing against a cut of NIS 481 million ($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 legally allocated.
The Times of Israel Community.