In the long struggle to get haredim to serve in the army, Sunday, August 11, may very well go down as a watershed date.
For on Sunday, the attorney-general started to use the heavy economic tools at the state’s disposal to get haredi yeshiva and kollel students into the army: imposing financial sanctions on the draft evaders themselves, not only on their yeshivot.
Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara’s office sent a letter ordering the Labor Minister, Yoav Ben-Tzur from Shas, to cut childcare subsidies worth between NIS 1,000 to NIS 1,700 per child to yeshiva students who are ignoring call-up notices.
The letter, signed by Deputy Attorney-General Gil Limon, stated that following a June High Court ruling that mandated the drafting of yeshiva students due to the absence of a legislative framework from the Knesset, the state no longer has the authority to provide childcare subsidies for children up to age three of kollel students designated for military service but who have not responded to draft notices. >This affects haredim aged 18-26 who have not shown up to be drafted.
Last week, only some 5% of the haredim who were sent their first call-up notice—or some 50 men—showed up at the country’s induction centers on the two days set aside for haredim.
Dozens of other haredim, however, showed up at the centers to protest and, at one point, broke into a base, shouting slogans such as "We would rather die than serve."
The IDF is planning to send out draft notices to some 3,000 haredim in the coming weeks, and those who don’t show up for this initial screening and evaluation process will be considered deserters and, if Baharav-Miara’s order goes into effect, will risk losing the daycare subsidies.
The new arrangement is to go into effect when the new year starts on September 1, though the attorney-general indicated there may be some wiggle room to allow for parents to make the necessary adjustments.
In late June, the High Court of Justice issued a landmark ruling saying there was no longer a legal basis for the continued military exemption for yeshiva students and ordered that the government stop funding yeshivot housing students who do not serve.
This ruling signified a dramatic shift in direction regarding this issue that has bedeviled the country since its founding. That ruling said that educational institutions harboring students who do not serve in violation of the law should be penalized by losing state funding. The court, however, did not go the extra mile and say the financial sanctions should be extended to the individual yeshiva students themselves for not showing up for army service.
That is the step the attorney general took on Sunday.
Why economic sanctions aren't the most effective
Economic sanctions against the yeshivot are a stick, but not the heaviest one that the country can wield. For instance, married Kollel students are not living off the NIS 855 stipend they get from the yeshivot. Rather, they receive all kinds of other state subsidies that allow them to study rather than work, with the childcare subsidy being one of the most significant.
According to various estimates, the state allocates between NIS 160 million to NIS 200 million a year for childcare subsidies to haredi families where the husband, aged 18-26, does not go into the army.
For a family with four children, this subsidy is worth between NIS 4,400 to 6,800 a month, a much more significant sum in trying to balance a household budget than the NIS 855 stipend coming from the yeshivot.
This, therefore, explains the furious reaction from haredi politicians.
Shas issued a statement saying that the move is “cruel legal bullying and abuse of helpless children.” Jerusalem and Heritage Minister Meir Porush of UTJ picked up on this theme that the move is abusing children, saying, “The legal system drags small children into a political battle and works to starve them.”
It’s interesting that they chose to focus their criticisms on the how unfair this is to children. A similar argument could come from the opposite direction, with reservists arguing that it is unfair -- because of a lack of manpower in the army -- that their children will be without their fathers for months on end this year.
Baharav-Miara’s letter was not the first time that there had been moves to cut childcare subsidies to full-time Kollel students.
In July 2021, soon after Avigdor Liberman took over as Finance Minister in Naftali Bennett’s government, he announced that he would be cutting childcare stipends to families where the husband was a full-time Kollel student. This was part of a broader effort to encourage greater workforce participation among haredim and prioritize subsidies for those who work and pay taxes.
Like Baharav-Miara, Liberman was roundly slammed by the haredi parties, who argued that his aim was to uproot their way of life.
As is the case now, Liberman’s decree came just weeks before the start of the new school year, and an appeal was taken to the High Court of Justice, which ruled in January 2022 that implementation would have to wait until the following year to allow the parents to make alternative arrangements.
The court ruled that not allowing a year’s grace period before cutting the subsidies did not “strike an appropriate and informed balance between the relevant interests under the circumstances, and is therefore unreasonable.”
In the meantime, the government collapsed, the country went to yet another round of elections, and a new government was formed headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the inclusion of the Haredi parties, and the policy was never implemented.
Both Liberman and Baharav-Miara’s moves are steeped in the belief that in order to change long-rooted behavioral patterns, economic sanctions are needed.
Ironically, Netanyahu pioneered this approach when he served as Finance Minister in Ariel Sharon’s government from 2002 to 2005.
During that period, Netanyahu implemented an austerity program that cut social services spending and allowances to reduce the government deficit and stimulate private sector growth. A key part of that plan was to slash child allowance payments, a move that had a huge impact on haredi families since many of these families were largely dependent on these allowances to financially make it through the month.
The loss of this income convinced many in the haredi community of the need to work. Haredi employment rates, which were 37% for men and 51% for women in 2003, rose to 55% for men and 81% for women by 2023. The child allowance cuts did not lead to any overnight transformational change but rather to a steady incremental change that spurred much greater haredi participation in the workforce.
Baharav-Miara’s action regarding the childcare subsidies will undoubtedly be challenged in the court. If the court upholds the ruling, though perhaps mandating a greater leeway period than the three weeks before September 1, the country may see that this move will -- because of economic necessity -- trigger greater haredi participation in the army, just as the slashing of child-allowances two decades ago led to significantly greater haredi participation in the workforce today.