Israel’s Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has blocked the transfer of approximately NIS 800 million ($252 million) to Chareidi yeshivos, intervening within hours of a Knesset vote to halt funds that had received parliamentary approval.
The funding was inserted by the coalition into a legislative amendment to the state budget and passed with a broad majority, in what Baharav-Miara acknowledged was a procedural maneuver. Because nearly all amendments are typically submitted by the opposition, a number of opposition MKs voted in favor without recognizing the measure — a legislative miscue that nonetheless produced a valid vote under Knesset rules.
The attorney general argued the allocation appeared designed to circumvent a High Court of Justice ruling that bars the state from providing benefits to yeshivos who have refused to comply with military conscription orders. The attorney general has broad discretion over which legal concerns to elevate into emergency halts and her office has shown a consistent pattern of deploying that discretion against legislation benefiting Chareidim.
United Torah Judaism MK Moshe Gafni did not mince words. “The budget was approved last night in accordance with the law, with an unprecedented majority,” he said. “Gali Baharav-Miara has no authority to intervene; this is criminality by any standard and her hatred towards the Chareidi public is visible to all.”
Opposition leader and Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid — a politician whose career has been defined by his opposition to Chareidi draft exemptions — welcomed the move immediately and in explicitly political terms. “We will continue to fight for you,” he said. “This money will not be transferred.”
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6 Responses
The A-G and Lapid שר”י would do better supporting Torah and Yeshivas during time of mortal danger to the entire country.
While EVERY קרבן is a tragedy and we daven for the speedy recovery of ALL injured, that despite relentless rockets, , that we don’t count on choliloh far more casualties, is nothing but an OPEN MIRACLE IN THE ZECHUS OF TORAH!
MAY HASHEM PROTECT ALL OF AM YISROEL FROM OUR ENEMIES.
Wow buncha trashbags. Israel isn’t a democracy this is nazism dictatorship
If it was a blunder, why would this not be a mekach ta’us, which very legitimately should be reversed?
Nebach, Gafni smelled the money and he went crazy. His kids would have lived it up.
Those wicked heretics are their own worst enemy. That idol’s only life force is the Torah that it supports, and they seem dead-set on destroying that and, therefore, that idol and all its entities.
The Hareidi schools that are government funded produce students who generally follow their rabbanim politically. By not funding them, they increase the influence of the non-zionist hareidim who reject government funding, and would be quite will to cut a deal with the Muslims to get peace with restored communal autonomy for the hareidim. They also are weakening the influence of the rabbanim among zionist hareidim, who when freed from the restraint of the hareidi rabbanim, advocate and work for policies that amount to “ethnic cleansing” (genocide) of the Palestinian residents of Eretz Yisrael (cf: IDF’s problems with Netzach Yehuda soldiers).
Israel is in a war that questions its long term survival (particularly if by 2029 the US has an anti-zionist government that tolerates anti-Semitism, and sees the existence of Israel as a policy mistake that needs to be corrected), and the idiot Zionists seem utterly dedicated to shooting themselves in the foot. In a life and death struggle, leaders need to build coalitions and promote national unity.