The government approved on Tuesday evening a sum of approximately NIS 5 billion in “coalition funds” in the 2025 budget, a large part of which are earmarked for haredi institutions.
Coalition funds are a part of the national budget aimed at enabling the implementation of political agreements. They often serve as funding for sectoral institutions or services, and are passed as a separate section in order to enable better oversight.
The largest portion of the coalition funds are approximately NIS 1.27 billion for “torah institutions” (yeshivot). Other notable funds include NIS 277 million in food stamps, which was a demand by Shas; NIS 92 million in “state assistance in parent’s payments for education”; and NIS 68 million to the Department for Socio-Economic Development for the Haredi Society, which is part of the prime minister’s office.
Finance Ministry legal advisor Asi Messing emphasized in an opinion accompanying the decision that none of the funding of the yeshivot could go towards students who have refrained from fulfilling their duty to enlist for IDF service and have not received a legal deferral or exemption from service.
The fact that these funds remained tagged as “coalition funding” and were not inserted into the “budget base” or the regular budget, is a loss for United Torah Judaism chairman MK Yizhak Goldknopf. Goldknopf revealed in a letter to Government Secretary Yossi Fuchs on Friday that coalition party leaders had agreed that this portion along with a number of other, smaller funds would enter the budget base.
The move was widely believed to have two central advantages for Goldknopf. First, the funds will receive a legal “stamp” as being legitimate parts of the national budget, and as such will not need to endure the more rigorous oversight usually reserved for coalition funds; and second, that unlike “coalition funds”, funds in the base of the budget are automatically replicated in the following budget.
Haaretz reported that Goldknopf agreed to support the decision after being promised that the government would act to completely eradicate coalition funding in the 2026 budget, and all funds would enter the budget base.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and the government as a whole also had an interest in inserting these funds into the base of the budget, since it would reduce the size of the “coalition funds,” which are generally viewed unfavorably and a source of criticism by the opposition.
Attempts blocked by A-G's office
However, attempts to insert the funds into the base of the budget have been blocked by the Attorney-General’s Office and by legal advisors in relevant ministries, including the finance ministry and education ministry. The reason is that many of the yeshivot and education systems in question do not meet requirements laid out by the education ministry itself, which includes criteria such as adequately trained teachers, the inclusion of a core curriculum including English and mathematics, and more.
Goldknopf in his letter on Friday accused the government secretary of failing to apply the agreements between the coalition leaders. Since then, Goldknopf and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have exchanged barbs in public comments and on social media. In a midday statement on Tuesday, Goldknopf criticized Smotrich over the fact that the latter will not be present at the government meeting on Tuesday due to a trip to the US.
Goldknopf added, “Until this moment, the funds for the haredi public … have yet to be arranged as agreed. I call on my fellow party leaders to note this and ensure that the haredi public does not remain behind.”
“We will not enable violation of basic rights of yeshiva students, families, and children who require critical solutions, and we must insist that the funds be arranged without delay and according to the coalition agreements we signed.”