From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, June 16, 2026
Ultra-Orthodox parties to continue boycotting coalition legislation, senior Haredi source tells ToI
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam 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"
The Knesset’s ultra-Orthodox parties do not believe that the so-called Daycare Bill, aimed at restoring government daycare subsidies to the children of Haredi draft evaders, will return to the parliamentary agenda, and the parties will thus continue their boycott of coalition legislation, a senior Haredi politician source tells The Times of Israel.
“There’s no law. It won’t be raised, there’s no majority,” the source says.
All legislation was removed from the plenum agenda on Monday afternoon over the issue, with the United Torah Judaism and Shas parties issuing a joint statement that they had “informed the coalition chairman that due to the failure to put the Daycare Law on the agenda, we will not vote today in favor of coalition legislation in the Knesset plenum.”
According to Hebrew-language reports, the coalition was not expected to bring the so-called Daycare Law to the plenum yesterday afternoon, following its approval by the Knesset Finance Committee last week, due to the opposition of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party.
In August 2024, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara ordered the Labor Ministry to cut daycare subsidies for the children of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students who disobey military draft orders, explaining that since the High Court ruled that members of the ultra-Orthodox community must be inducted into the army, there was no longer a legal basis for the state to fund daycare for families of those who don’t comply. The Haredi-backed legislation is an attempt to circumvent the attorney general’s orders.
The Times of Israel Community.