Weekly Commentary: Is the Unsupervised Billions in Haredi School

Weekly Commentary: Is the Unsupervised Billions in Haredi School System
Enough Glue?
Dr. Aaron Lerner, 28 March 2024

The order by the Supreme Court tonight to stop government funding for
yeshivot attended by students who have not served in the IDF brought threats
that the Haredi parties will bring down the government.

It should be noted that while the yeshivot won’t be getting money, the
Haredi school systems will continue to receive billions of shekels.

These billions are under scrutiny because until now there has been basically
no effective oversight – financial and otherwise – of the multi-billion
shekel government transfer to school systems run by the leading Haredi
political parties.

Some argue that the late Meretz leader Shulamit Aloni’s offer that “for
peace I’m even willing to wear a shtreimel,” is as true today as it was
decades ago.

If this is the case, the argument goes, then the Haredis have nothing to
lose by bringing the government down, as the Haredis can always offer the
Left to trade Judea and Samaria for billions for their Torah institutions
and liberal permanent draft deferrals for those registered as attending
yeshiva.

There is a bold snap move possible to address this threat if we do indeed
find ourselves on the precipice, centimeters away from plunging into
elections in the middle of this critical war: forming a broad coalition
headed by someone else from the Likud, with Benjamin Netanyahu taking over
the position of chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense
Committee so that there is a framework for him to contribute the critical
knowledge and insight that he has.

This coalition would be large enough to make it to the 27 October 2026
elections.

And given the multi-billion shekel government transfer to school systems run
by the leading Haredi political parties, even some of the Haredi parties may
conclude that it’s best to stay in for the ride, under protest of course.

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