Finance Committee moves to restore daycare subsidies for ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers

The Knesset Finance Committee voted on Tuesday to advance a bill restoring daycare subsidies for the children of ultra-Orthodox draft evaders, sending the measure to its first reading in the Knesset.

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 those who don’t comply.

In an attempt to bypass the ruling, the bill sponsored by the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party would prevent the government from considering the status of yeshiva students when determining eligibility for daycare subsidies or priority in admissions. Instead, the legislation stipulates that only the employment or educational status of a child’s mother will be taken into account.

The bill’s sponsor, MK Moshe Gafni, the chairman of UTJ’s Degel Hatorah faction, celebrated the passage of the bill in the Finance Committee, painting it as a victory for ultra-Orthodox women, rather than for eligible men avoiding mandatory conscription, saying it will ensure “that women will be able to go out to work and earn a respectable livelihood.”

The Finance Committee said the bill was also amended before Tuesday’s vote to give IDF reservists priority in daycare admissions and in determining subsidy levels, following demands by committee chair and Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky and other lawmakers.

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According to Ynet, around NIS 660 million of the NIS 1.2 billion (around 55%) allocated in the state budget for daycare subsidies goes to Haredi families each year. This is despite the Haredi population of Israel constituting just over 14% of Israel’s total population, per the Israel Democracy Institute.

Representatives from the Finance Ministry and the Justice Ministry have criticized the bill and doubted its viability, with Justice Ministry officials telling the committee on Tuesday that even if it passes, under the government’s own criteria, families in which the father is a draft evader will still be ineligible to receive subsidized daycare fees.

The Finance Ministry, meanwhile, was reported by Channel 12 to have informed the committee that the legislation would “clearly undermine” the two main economic challenges faced by Israel today — integrating ultra-Orthodox men into the workforce and conscripting them into the IDF.

This is because, for as long as the husband remains unemployed in yeshiva, eligibility for the subsidy will rely solely on the woman’s employment status, meaning there is no incentive for the husband to enter the workforce, the Finance Ministry explained.

At the same time, the legislation would also significantly reduce the allure of the economic incentives available to ultra-Orthodox men who draft to the IDF, the ministry’s representatives told the committee. IDF officials have previously assessed that the economic benefits of drafting were a “decisive contribution” to increased rates of ultra-Orthodox conscription over the past year, according to Channel 12.

Some 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged between 18 and 24 are currently believed to be eligible for military service, but have not enlisted, despite the persistent IDF manpower shortage. The ultra-Orthodox parties have long demanded a law enshrining their communities’ exemption from military service.

This effort was kicked into overdrive after the High Court in June 2024 ruled that there was no legal basis for the Haredi yeshiva students’ decades-long blanket exemption from the draft.

The coalition’s draft exemption bill — which would ostensibly increase military conscription in the Haredi community, but ultimately enables continued exemptions for full-time yeshiva students — is widely seen as legally contentious and loophole-laden and has generated intense resistance even among members of Netanyahu’s coalition.

The issue has caused a rift between the ultra-Orthodox parties and the members of the coalition, with some senior members of United Torah Judaism suggesting that the long partnership between the Israeli right-wing and the Haredi parties could be coming to an end.

In an attempt to smooth things over ahead of the elections later this year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with UTJ leader Yitzhak Goldknopf and his senior adviser Motti Babchik on Monday night, ultra-Orthodox news outlets reported.

During the meeting, Netanyahu reportedly asked the two men to let go of any disagreements it has with Likud and the rest of the right-wing pro-Netanyahu bloc and focus on presenting a united front over the coming months.

Babchick was reported to have told Netanyahu that the issue of a united front could be discussed once the draft exemption bill is passed.

“The draft bill is what is important to the Haredi public. After that, we can talk,” he told the premier, according to Haredi news outlet Kikar Shabbat.

Despite the apparently tense atmosphere of the meeting, a source in the Prime Minister’s Office told the news outlet that it was “significant” that the meeting happened at all, given that Goldknopf and Babchik have not held talks with Netanyahu “in a very long time.”