Yesh Atid to petition High Court over government’s planned transfer of NIS 1 billion to Haredi schools

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid announces that his Yesh Atid party will petition the High Court of Justice on Monday against what he describes as the “theft of more than a billion shekels of the money of Israeli citizens,” after the Knesset Finance Committee last week approved a budget transfer of NIS 1 billion ($312 million) to ultra-Orthodox schools out of what is left of the 2025 state budget.

According to the Globes financial news site, NIS 786 million ($245 million) will go to school networks affiliated with the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties, while NIS 150 million ($46.9 million) will go to so-called “recognized but unofficial” schools, which commit to teaching 75 percent of the core curriculum but in practice often do not.

Additional funding will be going to national-religious schools.

“This money is being transferred to ultra-Orthodox institutions in violation of the law, in an improper procedure, in an attempt to hide it from the public,” Lapid tells reporters ahead of his Yesh Atid party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset.

“We are determined to stop this,” he says. “We are tired of the fact that every time they have a problem in the coalition, their solution is to bribe each other with our money. In total, more than a billion shekels, outside the state budget, are stolen from working people, those who serve, taxpayers, the Israeli middle class — and transferred in the dead of night to people who do not serve, do not work and do not pay taxes.”

“This money is added to the unimaginable sum of 60 billion shekels ($18.6 billion) that the State of Israel pays every year to finance Haredi evasion,” Lapid adds, using a number he frequently cites as the cost of the failure of the Haredim to enlist in the IDF.

“At this time, our children are studying in too-large classes with teachers who earn too little. Our wounded are in hospitals that are collapsing under the load. Our roads are clogged, the cost of living is breaking families, personal security is at an all-time low and the government is raising property taxes and fees,” he continues.

“This petition will be submitted because we are fed up,” he continues, arguing that “the money they are stealing from us today, it is being used to destroy the future of our children. They are creating another generation here – much larger, with many more people – of young people who do not serve in the army and do not work, whom our children will have to finance.”