From the Liveblog of
Sunday, November 10, 2024
Softened Shas bill expanding rabbinical budgets set for first Knesset vote
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. 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"
A Shas-backed bill aimed at granting Religious Services Minister Michael Malkieli the power to allocate additional funds to local religious councils around the country is set to go to the Knesset plenum for its first reading on Monday, after being repeatedly blocked by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party.
According to Channel 13, Ben Gvir has backtracked on his objections to the bill, which he had blocked on three separate occasions, in an effort to force Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to add him to his now-defunct war cabinet. Ben Gvir has since been invited to limited ministerial security consultations with the prime minister.
The bill aims to amend the Religious Services Law, which regulates how much the government and municipalities contribute respectively to the budgets of the bodies providing communal religious services at the city and regional council levels.
The bill states that the religious services minister would be allowed, with the agreement of the finance minister, to pay for “salary expenses and positions beyond what is stated” in the law.
An initial version of the proposal would have created hundreds of publicly funded jobs for Orthodox rabbis, while giving the Chief Rabbinate considerable say in the appointment of all new municipal rabbis, reversing changes instituted in 2022 by the previous government.
