Israel’s Attorney General imposes sanctions on families of yeshiva students called up for IDF draft

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara instructs government to end funding of daycare for children whose fathers are full-time yeshiva students called in to IDF draft board.

By World Israel News Staff

Israel’s Attorney General has ordered the government to impose financial sanctions on the families of full-time ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students who have received draft orders, ending daycare subsidies for the students’ children.

On Sunday, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara penned a letter to the Minister of Labor Yoav Ben-Tzur (Shas), instructing him to halt daycare subsidies for the children of ultra-Orthodox men listed as full-time yeshiva students who have received draft notices.

The letter was written in response to a petition by the Movement for Quality Government to the Supreme Court, demanding that the government end subsidies for the families of ultra-Orthodox men who evade draft notices.

In June, Israel’s Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision, rejecting the government’s decision to continue to issue annual draft deferments to full-time yeshiva students and to fund students relying on the deferments despite the court’s striking down of the draft law years earlier.

Following the ruling, Baharav-Miara instructed the IDF to immediately implement the ruling by drafting 3,000 ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students.

Earlier this month, the IDF begin issuing draft notices to nearly 1,000 ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students, the first tranche of notices out of the 3,000 Baharav-Miara had ordered to be issued.

Of the roughly 900 notices which were delivered, however, only 48 yeshiva students appeared at army induction offices, the IDF said.

“In the current legal situation, the state is no longer authorized to encourage, through government funding according to daycare eligibility tests, religious studies of conscripts. In other words, the lack of authority no longer allows for funding based on the fact that a family member is studying in a religious institution while being designated for military service,” Baharav-Miara wrote in her letter Sunday.

“The daycare support tests serve as a tool for the state to encourage the integration of parents into the labor market. One of the activities deemed equivalent to work or employment-directed studies, alongside regular military service and national service, is the religious studies of conscripts.”

Ultra-Orthodox lawmakers castigated Baharav-Miara over the letter, accusing her of attempting to “starve” ultra-Orthodox children.

“The attorney general’s advice reveals the truth: they are not interested in the needs of the army, but only in obsessive persecution against the Torah world and the ultra-Orthodox family,” said Jerusalem Affairs Minister Meir Porush (United Torah Judaism).

“The legal system is dragging small children into a political battle and working to starve them.”

Israel’s military has granted draft deferments to full-time yeshiva students since the state’s inception in 1948, alongside full draft exemptions for most of Israel’s Arab population, for Orthodox Jewish women, and for Druze women.

The draft deferments for yeshiva students, which can be extended annually, have been the focus of criticism as the ultra-Orthodox population has grown in Israel and the number of full-time students increased, leading to calls for reform beginning in the 1990s.

Three different reforms were passed beginning in the 2010s, starting with the 2012 Tal Law.

However, the Supreme Court has twice struck down the reforms as being inconsistent with its interpretation of Israel’s proto-constitutional Basic Laws.

Amid political deadlock from 2019-2021, the coronavirus pandemic, and the war with Hamas, the Knesset has yet to replace the latest draft law, which was struck down by the court in 2017.