Smotrich: Will only back Haredi daycare subsidies bill if IDF reservist families get preferential treatment

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party informs cabinet secretary Yossi Fuchs and Justice Minister Yariv Levin that it will not support a Haredi-backed bill to preserve daycare subsidies for members of the ultra-Orthodox community who defy draft orders unless the legislation also enshrines preferential treatment for the families of IDF reservists.

The government is slated to vote on the bill — which aims to guarantee that the children of ultra-Orthodox men who are obligated to perform military service, but have not, will continue to be eligible for state-paid daycare subsidies — during today’s meeting of the Ministerial Committee on Legislation.

In exchange for supporting the bill, Religious Zionism demands that the families of reservists receive priority in daycare admissions and that they receive higher levels of subsidies.

The Attorney General’s Office has called the proposed legislation “unconstitutional,” arguing that “the principle of equality will be harmed through state and institutional encouragement of avoiding conscription into the IDF.”

Previously the law allowed families in which a mother works and a father who studies full time in yeshiva in lieu of military service to receive the subsidies, worth thousands of shekels a month for ultra-Orthodox families.

The attorney general declared the arrangement illegal after the High Court of Justice ruled in June that ultra-Orthodox men are also obligated to serve in the IDF and that financial support for such students was therefore illegal by extension.

Meanwhile, Smotrich has been losing support from his base for his silence, until recently, on the issue of draft exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men.