Smotrich orders haredi daycare subsidies to continue, defying attorney general

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he would continue subsidizing daycare payments for haredi families with military-age haredi fathers and working mothers, contrary to the legal opinion of the attorney general’s office last week that these subsidies were no longer legal and therefore had to stop.

Smotrich’s decision, which he announced in a sharply worded letter to Deputy Attorney-General Gil Limon and Finance Ministry Legal Advisor Asi Messing, opens another front in the struggle between the government and the attorney-general’s office. Members of the government have argued that the A-G’s office is intentionally attempting to block their policies, while the A-G’s office has argued that it is merely ensuring that the government acts according to the law.

Israeli executive orders laid out annually by the Labor Ministry dictate that the state subsidizes daycare for low-income families in which both parents either worked or studied. The latter includes learning in yeshivot. The High Court of Justice ruled in late June that the legal construct by which haredi men continuously deferred their military service to study in a yeshiva until age 26, after which they are exempt, had expired. Limon wrote last week that since learning in a yeshiva was conditional on legal military deferment, now that deferment was no longer legal – the state could not continue to incentivize studying in yeshiva for military-age students via subsidies. Limon based his opinion on a similar opinion by Messing.

The order could have dramatic effects on the income of haredi families. Limon recognized that this could have an impact on haredi families’ preparation for the coming school year, and therefore left open the option of enabling a short preparation period before his decision takes effect. Labor Minister Yoav Ben Tzur (Shas) requested later last week that this preparation period last one year, or at least until February. Ben-Tzur, who had initially requested that the matter be discussed during the government’s weekly meeting on Sunday, later rescinded the request since the issue was being considered by the attorney-general’s office.

Smotrich claims Limon and Messing's opinion is wrong

In his letter, dated Thursday but published on Sunday, Smotrich argued that Limon and Messing’s opinion was wrong and based on spite towards haredi families. Smotrich demanded that they rescind the opinion, that he intended to continue with the subsidies and, that if the legal advisors thought it problematic, they could petition the High Court. The finance minister’s intention contradicted the aforementioned High Court ruling, which reiterated that the attorney-general was the only statutory interpreter of the law and the court’s rulings, and therefore its opinions were binding.

Smotrich began by saying that it was “astounding” in his eyes that the exchange of letters between Messing and Limon regarding the legal opinion was done “over my head as finance minister – as if you were the policy setters, interpreters, and executive.”

In any case, Smotrich argued, Limon and Messing’s basic assumption that “the subsidy for daycare payments is given due to the father’s Torah study and as support for this study” was fundamentally wrong.

“Subsidizing the [daycare] payment is not connected to the father’s Torah study, and is geared towards incentivizing the mother to join the workforce, by assisting in funding frameworks for her children,” Smotrich wrote.

The demand that the father also be occupied in order for him and his working wife to be eligible for subsidies – whether due to work, academic study, or yeshiva study – was only a “‘condition’ that as a starting point, the subsidy is not necessary since the father can take care of the children at home,” Smotrich argued. He added that this rationale emerged continuously in a series of in-depth discussions last year.

Rather, the decision to include the father’s yeshiva studies as an eligible criterion for daycare subsidies was a “practical decision based on the simple fact of life, that in a haredi family in which the father studies Torah, the mother remains at home to care for the children for many years, even at the price of poverty and low standard of living, and on the economic goal of integrating haredi women into the workforce,” Smotrich added.

This measure has proven itself over the years, as employment percentages of haredi women have equaled and even surpassed that of the general public. Removing the subsidies would reverse the progress made, Smotrich added.

Smotrich wrote that the damage to the economy would be dramatic, and the fact that Limon and Messing would not bear responsibility for the outcome of the decision meant that their decision was “baseless” and made “without authority.”

“In any case, this is my unequivocal economic policy, and as finance minister I am responsible for the economy and for sustained growth and productivity. In a democratic state, what decides is the policy of the elected officials, and not the agenda of clerks and legal advisors who do not bear the responsibility for the outcome of their decisions.

“You are required to immediately cancel your opinion that is fundamentally wrong, enable me to continue my economic policy supporting growth and integration of haredi women in the workforce, and refrain from sabotaging it and the economy in a way that is illegal and unreasonable. Out of my authority as finance minister I order continuing subsidies for daycares according to the labor ministry’s customary criteria,” Smotrich wrote.