State funding for daycares of draft-dodging yeshiva students ‘illegal’ — AG
Baharav-Miara submits High Court petition after ultra-Orthodox appeal for delay; Smotrich slams Haredi leaders for dismissing importance of IDF service; UTJ threatens to bolt coalition
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara told the High Court of Justice on Wednesday that the government is legally barred from funding daycare subsidies for the children of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students who are obligated to perform military service but are not doing so, as a result of the court’s own decision in June that such students were legally obliged to enlist in the army.
Her position was submitted to the court in response to a petition by ultra-Orthodox groups asking for an increase to the length of the transition period between the cut to daycare subsidies and their implementation and comes after she told the government it was legally obligated to halt these payments back in August.
But the petition also answered petitions by groups advocating for ultra-Orthodox enlistment who have demanded that Labor and Welfare Minister Yoav Ben Tzur publish the criteria for subsidies for all those eligible. The minister has refused to publish the criteria ever since the attorney general barred funding for children of yeshiva students who have not performed military service.
“The Labor Minister is not allowing the families who are eligible for the subsidy to receive the annual subsidy which they are entitled to in order to coerce a solution which allows the families of yeshiva students who are obligated to perform military service to receive the subsidy [as well]” Baharav-Miara told the court.
“This behavior is unlawful,” she asserted, insisting that ultra-Orthodox families who were eligible for the subsidy constituted a minority of those eligible from the entire population and that Ben Tzur could not refuse to publish the eligibility criteria just for those now ineligible families.
The Attorney General’s Office has previously told Ben Tzur that the ban on funding stems from the High Court’s June ruling that there was no longer any legal framework for Haredi military service exemptions after the relevant law and government decision expired, and which further ruled that financial support for such students was also illegal by extension.
This week, United Torah Judaism party chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf threatened to withdraw from the governing coalition, saying that his party would not be able to remain part of the government if a bill exempting Haredi yeshiva students from military service isn’t passed before the 2025 state budget comes up for approval.
“We will not be in the government without a conscription law,” he cautioned.
He further said that, unlike many senior ultra-Orthodox rabbinical leaders and politicians, he would not oppose moves to enlist Haredi Jews who are not enrolled full-time in yeshiva.
“Let them be drafted, it is none of our business,” he said. “Our law [that will be proposed] does not protect those who do not study Torah. I need the recruitment law to recruit the Haredim who do not study.”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich condemned the leaders of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox parties for dismissing the importance of military service, stating that failure to enlist is an “injustice” that must be remedied.
“I read with heart-wrenching pain the words of some members of the ultra-Orthodox factions, members of the coalition, about the sacred duty of serving in the IDF,” Smotrich said — arguing that serving in the IDF does not conflict with Torah study or religious observance, as exemplified by “the thousands of religious Zionist fighters who combine combat service and study with heroism and the sanctification of God’s name.”
On Monday, Shas chairman Aryeh Deri appeared to present yeshiva students’ studies as more valuable to the war effort than soldiers’ activities on the frontlines.
“You have to understand, if you look at the budget, each day of battle costs us more than the entire annual budget of the entire Torah world,” Deri told the Makor Rishon daily. “We believe that every day of study prevents more days of battle.”
“Service in the IDF is a duty, a right and a mitzvah,” countered Smotrich, arguing that whatever their reasons, failing to serve “is an injustice that requires fundamental correction.”
“I also firmly reject attempts to issue an irresponsible ultimatum for the approval of the state budget necessary for the war and the stability of the economy,” he insisted.
In September, UTJ minster Meir Porush declared that there was no compromise on the enlistment of yeshiva students which would be acceptable to both the AG and UTJ, and said his constituents are facing “the worst situation for ultra-Orthodox Judaism since the establishment of the state.”
Hebrew media reported last week that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reassured the ultra-Orthodox parties that his government will advance a bill facilitating sweeping exemptions for Haredi men from mandatory military service by the end of the month.
