The High Court of Justice issued an interim injunction against the state on Tuesday prohibiting it from transferring money to yeshivas for approximately three thousand students due to the lack of legal standing such transfers now have.
The decision marks the first time the High Court has decisively intervened on the issue of haredi enlistment since the Tal Law expired at the end of July 2012, and is being proclaimed by draft equality groups as a signal of intent by the court should the Knesset delay much longer over new legislation for drafting haredi men into national service.
But haredi MKs fiercely denounced the decision, and said that the court was interfering with the legislative process, while describing the institution as “an enemy of the haredi public,” which is sowing the seeds of civil war.
Several lobbying groups, including the Movement for Quality Government in Israel and Hiddush, have petitioned the High Court to prevent the state paying the monthly stipends yeshiva students were entitled to under the framework of the Tal Law which expired at the end of July 2012.
The state continued to pay these stipends, which for unmarried students amounted to NIS 500 in 2012 a month but have since been reduced to NIS 250, despite the fact that there was no legal framework for the provision of such funds.
The High Court on Tuesday ruled that any yeshiva student from the 1994 and 1995 cohorts, as well as the first half of the 1996 cohort who have received enlistment orders but who were given mass exemptions by the Minister of Justice can no longer receive these stipends.
It is believed there are some 3,000 haredi men who fall into this category.
Since August 2013, the Minister of Justice has however provided mass deferrals for those haredim who received an enlistment date, on the basis that the Knesset is still dealing with their legislation which will define their status vis-a-vis the IDF and national service obligations.
But the High court ruled that such people can no longer be provided with the state-funded stipend.
The court did not rule on the demands of the petitioners that all haredi men who are eligible for military service be drafted, given the absence of a legal framework to exempt them, and gave the state till March 31 to provide an update on legislative efforts.
Hiddush welcomed the court’s decision to halt the transfer of funds, saying that it showed that there was a limit to its patience on the matter.
“Since the Tal Law expired a year and a half ago, the state has broken the law by not drafting yeshiva students,” said Hiddush director Uri Regev.
The Movement for Quality Government in Israel described the decision as “unprecedented” and said that the court had acknowledged that the state had continued to break the law, and that Tuesday’s decision put serious pressure on the government to pass legislation on the issue. And Yesh Atid MK and rabbi Dov Lipman also welcomed the ruling saying that current situation could not continue and called for the rapid advancement of the government legislation currently being deliberated in committee.
But Shas chairman Arye Deri heavily criticised the decision, saying that the High Court justices had “joined those persecuting the Torah world by grossly interfering with the sensitive legislative process currently being examined by the legislative house.”
He claimed that since the Defense Minister legally deferred the enlistment dates of those students who received draft orders “there is no connection between enlistment deferral and yeshiva budgets,” and added that the court was joining “the slander and incitement against those who study Torah in the Land of Israel.”
And senior haredi MK Meir Porush spoke out harshly against the decision, and said that the high court was “recognised as an enemy against the Haredi public in it’s discriminatory ruling”.
United Torah Judaism MK Yaakov Litzman also heavily criticised the decision, and accused the court of circumventing the legislative house and imposing it’s own personal opinion on the issue which is currently under debate int he Knesset committee.
“It is extremely serious that the high court sees itself as above the law and is determining he fate of Yeshiva students whose draft referrals were done in accordance with the law by the Minister of Defence” said the MK.
“Yeshiva students who study Torah full time will continue in their studies and no power, economic or criminal, will prevent them from doing so, not now and not in the future,” he declared.
MK Yisrael Eichler, also of UTJ, said that the High Court justices was “working in the service of terrorist Reform organisations, which seek to create an atmosphere of bloody civil war.”
“They don’t want haredim in the army, the High Court rulers just do not want them to learn Torah,” Eichler raged, claiming in addition that the court would not withhold funds to universities or other institutions in order to pressurise the Knesset.
“The court also wouldn’t dare to force Arabs into civilian service,” he noted.
“The haredi public despises the enemies of the Torah, the Reform. Even if we are forced to go underground we will teach self-sacrifice and be victorious over the rulers from the High Court who are persecuting the Torah and those who study it.”