In a warning letter sent ahead of possible legal action, the Emes L’Yaakov B’Yisrael organization sent a warning letter last week to Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich demanding the immediate suspension of Rom Bar-Av, the Budget Department’s employment coordinator, stating that he carried out serious bureaucratic manipulation and presented a false and distorted picture in order to block daycare subsidies and harm working Chareidi women.
The organization revealed that the Budget Department official, whose role is to promote employment in the economy, acted in a manner directly contrary to the goals of his department by presenting distorted data showing a false link between the withdrawal of daycare subsidies and an increase in Chareidi enlistment in order to block daycare subsidies to families of avreichim, causing significant harm to working Chareidi women
The organization stated that the actual enlistment data show there has been no increase in enlistment into combat units as a result of the economic sanctions.
“The official used a false and misleading argument that restoring subsidies would reduce fathers’ motivation to enlist,” the letter states. “In reality, this policy collectively punishes hardworking working mothers and helpless babies and toddlers, turning them into hostages in a political dispute.”
“It is unfathomable for a public official to exploit the Knesset platform and his professional position to present speculative and unfounded assumptions as established scientific data. This constitutes a serious professional and ethical failure that justifies the immediate termination of his employment. We demand that the Ministry of Finance immediately present genuine statistical breakdowns and independent studies.”
A substantial portion of the letter focuses on the impact of the withdrawal of daycare subsidies on working mothers. According to the organization, the daycare subsidies were intended to encourage participation in the workforce, and therefore their withdrawal primarily harms working women and their children rather than the avreichim themselves. The letter also notes that, according to Ministry of Labor data cited in the letter, the employment rate among Chareidi women aged 25 to 40 stands at 85.4%—higher than the employment rate among non-Chareidi Jewish women in the same age group.
Among its demands, the organization calls on the Ministry of Finance to publish the full professional basis underlying its position, provide detailed enlistment data broken down by time period, service track, and population group, and clarify whether any study exists demonstrating a causal relationship between the withdrawal of daycare subsidies and the increase in enlistment. It also calls on the ministry to refrain from presenting such a causal link unless and until it has been empirically established.
Copies of the letter were sent to, among others, the President of Israel, the Prime Minister, the Civil Service Commissioner, the State Comptroller, the Director General of the Ministry of Finance, and other government officials.
(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)
One Response
“provide detailed enlistment data broken down by time period, service track, and population group…” it’s impossible to get a true picture, as the numbers of population group is either deliberately manipulated or erroneous.