State reportedly not cutting funds to Haredi schools that fail to teach core subjects

By Sam Sokol 3 August 2026, 4:50 pm

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Sam 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"

Despite claims to the contrary, over the past three years, the Education Ministry did not remove funding from schools failing to teach core subjects such as math and English, only deducting less than half a percent from the United Torah Judaism party’s network, Channel 13 reported last night.

The network’s revelations are in line with a 2025 research report by the Israel Democracy Institute, which found that only a small fraction of the ultra-Orthodox boys’ elementary schools that fail to teach core curriculum subjects as required by law face any sanctions.

Despite the lack of core subjects in the ultra-Orthodox school system, the Knesset Finance Committee is slated to vote tomorrow on allocating an additional NIS 200 million ($65.5 million) for Haredi schools.

Meanwhile, according to a newly reported December 2025 brief to the High Court filed by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, the Education Ministry last year warned dozens of ultra-Orthodox schools that they would lose their accreditation over their failure to teach core subjects.

According to Channel 12, the filing, which came in response to a petition against the transfer of some NIS 1 billion ($314 million) to ultra-Orthodox schools, stated that some 31 educational institutions affiliated with the Knesset’s Haredi parties received such warnings.

The filing further specified that the Education Ministry had offered all of the schools a chance to fix the issue and that only three schools refused to do so, losing their status as part of the party-affiliated networks.

Moreover, the filing stated that the Education Ministry considers schools that only teach some grades secular studies as meeting its criteria while the Finance Ministry believes that unless students through eighth grade participate in secular studies, the schools are not compliant.

According to the Finance Ministry’s criteria, 32% of Haredi institutions do not teach the required core subjects and 171 schools should be removed from their networks.