Ministries once recommended for closure set to receive hefty funding boost in 2025 budget

17 March 2025, 4:05 pm 12 Edit

MK Moshe Gafni leads a vote during a Finance Committee meeting, at the Knesset, in Jerusalem, on March 10, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Several government ministries previously classified as superfluous by financial experts are set to receive a substantial last-minute funding boost in the 2025 state budget.

Channel 12 reports that members of the Knesset Finance Committee were informed today that an additional NIS 51 million would be allocated to the Settlements and National Missions Ministry, bringing its 2025 budget to NIS 391 million, a roughly 194% increase from its 2023 budget of NIS 133 million.

Settlements Minister Orit Strock is a member of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party.

Meanwhile, the allocated budget for the Jerusalem and Jewish Tradition Ministry, headed by United Torah Judaism lawmaker Meir Porush, will see its budget increase from NIS 28 million to NIS 118 million.

The Heritage Ministry will reportedly receive a somewhat more modest budget increase of NIS six million, bringing its total to NIS 78 million.

In December 2023, the Finance Ministry recommended that all three of the ministries be shut down, along with seven others it deemed superfluous, in order to offset the strain put on the budget by the war in Gaza.

To date, of the 10 ministries included in the proposal, only the Advancement of the Status of Women Ministry has been closed.