Lapid, Smotrich both criticize UTJ chief over demands for funds to Haredim

Earlier, both Opposition Leader Yair Lapid and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich criticized the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, following its threat to oppose the 2025 state budget and its public attacks on the coalition.

Addressing reporters ahead of his Yesh Atid party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset, Lapid slammed UTJ chairman and Housing Minister Yitzchak Goldknopf over a letter he sent to Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs over the weekend, demanding more than a billion shekels in coalition funds for Haredi education. If he did not get the money, he would oppose the 2025 state budget, bringing down the government, he warned.

Lapid said that Goldknopf’s demands do not matter because as soon as the opposition comes into power, it will cancel all of those coalition funds “down to the last shekel.”

Following up on his letter, Goldknopf on Sunday evening sent reporters a copy of his coalition agreement with Likud, stating that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling party has failed to follow through on many of its commitments. These include passing legislation to regulate the enlistment status of yeshiva students and the enactment of a Basic Law enshrining Torah study as a national value.

Asked about Goldknopf’s threat during his own Religious Zionism party’s faction meeting, Smotrich condemned his coalition partner’s “false populist campaign,” asserting that he had failed to obtain conscription exemptions for yeshiva students and “is now looking for a way to explain to [his] public that there are no budgetary achievements.”

“This budget is good. It is first and foremost a budget that supports the war efforts… until victory,” he continues, asserting that it is “also a good budget for the Haredi public.”