The Degel Hatorah faction, part of the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) United Torah Judaism party, convened for an “extraordinary” meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem on Wednesday to discuss its positions regarding the 2025 state budget, the party announced.
The budget must be passed by March 31, or the government will automatically fall. Degel Hatorah chairman MK Moshe Gafni serves as chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee and, as such, controls the pace of the budget’s advancement in the Knesset.
The meeting was notable, as members of UTJ in recent weeks have expressed growing dissatisfaction over the government’s failures to fulfill promises regarding budgets for the haredi sector and an exemption for yeshiva students from IDF service.
UTJ voted against government
The dissatisfaction came to a head on Tuesday evening when UTJ chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf, who also leads the party’s hassidic Agudat Yisrael faction, voted against a government decision to allocate approximately NIS 5 billion in the budget to sectoral “coalition funding,” most of which will go to haredi institutions. Other haredi ministers voted in favor of the decision.
Goldknopf will likely resign from his housing minister position prior to the final vote on the state budget and then vote against it. Goldknopf represents the Gur hassidic sect, which has taken a hardline stance on a demand to pass a conscription law before the budget.
While Tuesday evening’s decision indicated that the rest of UTJ will likely support the budget, Degel Hatorah’s support for the 2025 state budget is not guaranteed, according to a source. Much can happen on the political front before March 31 that could affect the faction’s vote. In any case, without progress on the conscription bill, the issue of whether or not to support the budget will likely be decided by the faction’s spiritual leadership, the source said.