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.

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........

© The Times of Israel