Opposition leader Yair Lapid and Yesh Atid MKs filed an urgent petition to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, seeking to block the transfer of NIS 1.09 billion to Chareidi educational institutions.

The petition claims that the allocation, approved by the Knesset Finance Committee, is illegal because it funds schools that “do not prepare Chareidi children for modern life, in violation of the law.”

The petitioners—MKs Yair Lapid, Vladimir Beliak, and Moshe Tur-Paz—claim that the Finance Committee approved the transfer in blatant violation of the State Education Law and its regulations.

The petition requested that the court issue an urgent interim order suspending the Finance Committee’s decision and preventing the transfer, warning that without an order, the funds will be disbursed by December 31.

UTJ chairman Yitzchak Goldknopf, responded: “Yair Lapid once again proves that the only fuel driving him is hatred of Chareidim. The petition to the Supreme Court is another attempt to harm the basic rights of hundreds of thousands of parents and children whose only ‘crime’ is their desire to preserve their way of life and the mesorah of their forefathers. The funds in question passed all the required professional and legal approvals, and their purpose is to correct a historic discrimination in the budgeting of exempt institutions and recognized-but-unofficial education.”

“We are confident that the court will reject this political attempt to interfere in legitimate budgetary decisions of the government. We will continue to stand guard to ensure that every child in Israel receives what he or she deserves, without discrimination between sectors. We will not allow Chareidi children in Israel to be turned into second-class citizens.”

Last month, the Yesh Atid party proposed a law stripping voting rights from Chareidim who don’t serve in the IDF—but not from Arabs who don’t serve.

It should be noted that in 2023, Lapid defended leftists who called for refusal to serve in the IDF, claiming that “it’s not considered insubordination for people to say that ‘they won’t serve in an army of a non-democratic state.'”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)