Haredi parties continue to boycott coalition voting over Torah Study bill

The bill seeks to enshrine Torah study in the country’s Basic Law as part of a proposal pushed by haredi parties to encourage draft evasion and change the status of yeshiva students who do not serve, enabling them to continue receiving state benefits.

It passed its preliminary reading earlier this month and still must be advanced in a Knesset committee before undergoing three more required readings to come into effect.

“The violent arrests of Torah learners must stop! We have informed the coalition chairman that, as long as the law to stop the arrests and the Basic Law: Torah Study are not advanced, we will not support any coalition legislation,” Deri stated.

Degel Hatorah leader MK Moshe Gafni, who sponsored the bill, said in a discussion at the Knesset’s House Committee on Monday that he was “fed up with promises in this term,” and wanted to be sure that the legislation would pass.

“I am informing you unequivocally: I do not intend to humiliate myself once again. I have had enough of promises that were never fulfilled,” Ganfi added. He was referring to past legislation advanced by the coalition for the haredi parties that ultimately lacked a majority and was shelved.

Lawmakers in the Knesset plenum later voted 48-35 to transfer the bill to be advanced in the Knesset’s House Committee, rather than in the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee, which is led by MK Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionist Party).

Rothman argued that the decision to transfer the legislation to the House Committee for advancement was “in light of complex scheduling constraints and the creation of an unusual burden on the legislative agenda of the committee.”

However, there have been reports that his decision not to advance the bill in his committee was part of an attempt by Rothman’s Religious Zionist party, led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, to distance itself from the contentious legislation.

The House Committee, in contrast, is led by coalition whip MK Ofir Katz, a member of the Likud party.

Knesset legal adviser Sagit Afik warned against moving the legislation to the House Committee, telling the panel that “the legal advisory position is that the law should be discussed in the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee.”

Afik also stressed that the legislation was a significant Basic Law, and “therefore, the legislative process must also be proper and appropriate.”

“Pressure and workload do not override, in my view, a proper legislative process. This transfer raises a serious difficulty that may undermine the integrity of the legislative process,” she warned.

Another contentious bill the haredi parties have been pushing to advance is the haredi daycare subsidies bill, which aims to change the eligibility criteria for daycare subsidies, basing eligibility solely on a mother’s income, a move critics argue will encourage state subsidies for parents of draft evaders.

In April, the High Court of Justice ordered that the state take concrete steps to revoke key financial benefits from draft evaders and to move toward criminal enforcement against haredi men who evade military service.

The tensions also come amid the coalition’s last Knesset session to advance its legislation before the upcoming elections, scheduled for no later than October 27.