Contrary to previous reports, the government on Tuesday evening decided to insert approximately NIS 1 billion of funds for yeshivot into the “base” of the 2025 state budget, the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Shas and Degel Hatorah parties said in a joint statement on Thursday.
The decision means that the funds will no longer be labeled as “coalition funds.” 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.
According to the original text ahead of Tuesday evening’s government meeting, whose purpose was to approve the approximately NIS 5b. in coalition funds for the 2025 budget, approximately NIS 1.27b. were earmarked for yeshivot. These were supposed to have joined the NIS 367 million in funds for yeshivot in the “budget base.”
However, according to the statement by Shas and Degel Hatorah on Thursday, the size of funding for yeshivot in the budget base grew to approximately NIS 1b., leaving approximately NIS 600m. as “coalition funds.”
The decision has two central advantages for the haredi parties. 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.
In addition, according to the Shas and Degel statement, the government decided on Tuesday that beginning in 2026, the concept of coalition funds will cease, and all of the sectoral funds will become a part of the budget base. This will ensure “stability and the capability for long-term planning,” the statement said.
The parties called the decision “historic” and attributed it to “determined and strenuous action by the haredi public’s representatives in the government, led by Shas chairman Arye Deri, Knesset Finance Committee chairman MK Moshe Gafni, Minister [in the Education Ministry] Haim Bitton [Shas], [Shas] MK Yinon Azoulay, and [Gafni aide] Moshe Zeloshinski.”
Notably absent from the statement was the Hassidic Agudat Yisrael Party, whose chairman, Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, voted against Tuesday’s decision, and who has announced that he will quit the government and vote against the 2025 budget if a bill to exempt a majority of haredi yeshiva students does not pass into law first.
The insertion of the funds for yeshivot into the budget base required amending the 2025 budget proposal, which is being prepared in the finance committee. The committee was scheduled to convene on Thursday, but the meeting was canceled in order for finance ministry officials to make the necessary amendments.
Final text unavailable to public
As of Thursday morning, the final text of the government’s decision on Tuesday evening was still unavailable to the public.
According to law, if the state budget is not passed by March 31, the government automatically falls and an election is called.