Haredi politicians accuse AG of 'war on Torah world'

Haredi yeshivas with draft dodgers will no longer receive tax-exempt donations, AG says

Baharav-Miara determines that tax exemption indirectly finances yeshivas with draft dodgers and ‘encourages evasion,’ but says implementation will take time

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara determined on Wednesday that tax exemptions will be withdrawn from ultra-Orthodox yeshivas whose students fail to obey conscription orders from the military.

In an update to the High Court of Justice on the issue, the attorney general asserted that “the state cannot continue to indirectly finance” religious institutions that enroll men who have failed to report for military service, saying that allowing such institutions to receive tax-free donations would “encourage evasion.”

Baharav-Miara said that the tax authorities need further time to evaluate how to implement her determination, and asked the court to give the Finance Ministry until May 28 to provide an update on its efforts to do so.

The High Court has explicitly ruled that the state must not provide any funds, directly or indirectly, to such institutions, most recently in a decision on Monday in which it ordered government agencies to condition certain welfare benefits on military service as a way of revoking those benefits from ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers.

Haredi politicians lambasted Baharv-Miara in response to her instruction. United Torah Judaism party chair MK Yitzhak Goldknopf stated that she was acting “without restraint in her war against those who study Torah in the Holy Land.”

Fellow UTJ MK Moshe Gafni said the attorney general’s instructions amounted to “a declaration of open war against the Torah world and Judaism in the State of Israel,” and accused Baharav-Miara of “obsessive and systematic persecution of the Haredi community and everything that represents the Jewish identity of the state.”

He also called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fire the attorney general. The government did decide to fire Baharav-Miara back in August 2025, but the High Court annulled her dismissal.

The High Court ruled in November that the government must draw up effective social and economic enforcement measures against ultra-Orthodox men who fail to enlist for compulsory military service within 45 days, but the government failed to do so.

Due to this failure, the court issued specific orders to several government agencies and cabinet ministers to condition five welfare benefits on enlistment to the Israel Defense Forces, in a step that will overwhelmingly impact the tens of thousands of Haredi men who have failed to enlist since a law granting them mass exemptions expired.