Ministry of Education: Benefits frozen for over 90,000 draft-evading yeshiva students

The Ministry of Education has frozen benefit payments to over 90,000 yeshiva students who are draft evaders, following a Supreme Court ruling on the matter. This was reported this morning (Wednesday) by Ministry of Education representatives to the Knesset Finance Committee, which was discussing the transfer of a 4.4 billion shekel budget surplus from the Ministry of Education from 2025 to 2026.

The significance of this figure is that about half of yeshiva students are no longer receiving payments due to draft evasion. It can be assumed that almost all students of "large yeshivas" (Haredi yeshivas for single men) are not receiving budget funding, as well as a growing portion of kollel students (avrech — a married yeshiva student, kollel — a yeshiva for married men). Last year, about half a billion shekels were frozen from the 1.8 billion shekel yeshiva budget due to draft evasion. This year, it is estimated that the frozen amount will reach 600 million shekels. The reason the amount is growing is that the freeze began for the 18–26 age group, but the age threshold is increasing, so now the freeze applies to the 18–29 age group. The reason the frozen budget is only about a third of the yeshiva budget is that most of those frozen are students of large yeshivas, whose budget is relatively lower than that of kollel students.

Ministry representatives announced that these are "committed surpluses" — funds that were approved as part of the 2025 state budget, and because of this, the Ministry of Education committed to executing them. They added that the ministry paid these obligations in 2026, including teacher salaries. This means the money reached its destination before the Finance Committee approved the transfer of the surpluses. According to them, since the money was already approved in 2025 and the Ministry of Education had entered into contracts regarding it, there was no obstacle to transferring it. They further noted that legal opinions regarding the transfer of these funds were presented to the Finance Committee during the 2025 budget discussions, and therefore no new legal opinions are required now.

The details were provided following a series of questions from opposition MKs: Orit Farkash-Hacohen, Vladimir Beliak, and Naor Shiri (Yesh Atid). The opposition MKs protested against a "wave" of 30 budget requests to be discussed today, which were submitted only in the last week, after the Knesset was dissolved. The committee is holding a marathon session today where it will approve, via the coalition majority, all these funds, intended among other things for yeshivas and settlements.

MK Beliak argued: "There was an understanding that today a meeting would be held regarding the Treasury's requests for transfers that were submitted until the Knesset was dissolved. No one thought the coalition would place over 30 requests on the table right before the elections. We are talking about 600 million shekels of coalition funds, and this does not meet any standard in terms of procedures and precedents."

MK Farkash-Hacohen argued that after the Knesset is dissolved, the government should not create facts on the ground regarding the use of tax money and take steps of such magnitude economically. "We received requests to transfer over 5 billion shekels and with approval for authorization to commit by the ministries (credit line) of about 6 billion shekels, said Farkash-Hacohen. How do these transfers comply with the Attorney General's guidelines to adhere to the rules of restraint required of an outgoing Knesset?"