Recordings published in Ynet last week revealed that Agudat Yisrael party officials were instructing yeshiva students to open fictitious small businesses

 

תּוֹרַת ה' תְּמִימָה, מְשִׁיבַת נָפֶשׁ; עֵדוּת ה נֶאֱמָנָה, מַחְכִּימַת פֶּתִי 

מֹשֶׁה אֱמֶת וְתוֹרָתוֹ אֱמֶת 

Agudat Yisrael accused of instructing yeshiva students to evade IDF draft sanctions

 

Recordings published in Ynet last week revealed that Agudat Yisrael party officials were instructing yeshiva students to open fictitious small businesses. 

 

Police officers in Bnei Brak, Israel use water cannons as haredi Orthodox Jewish men block a main highway to protest efforts to allow the state to draft Haredi yeshiva students into military service

Yesh Atid MK Vladimir Beliak, who coordinates the opposition’s activity in the Knesset Finance Committee, demanded Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara open a criminal investigation into officials in the hassidic Agudat Yisrael party over its attempts to evade sanctions against draft dodgers that are expected to come into effect on March 1.

Yeshiva students whose wives work are eligible to receive state-subsidized daycare for children below age three. However, this subsidy is set to expire at the end of February for students who are required to enlist for IDF service but have refrained from doing so. The loss of the subsidy is a significant financial sanction for many haredi families, as it could raise expenditures by hundreds, if not thousands, of shekels per month.

Recordings published in Ynet last week revealed that Agudat Yisrael officials were instructing yeshiva students to open fictitious small businesses since these will enable the students to continue receiving the subsidy for an additional six months. While technically legal, this was a clear attempt to continue avoiding sanctions against draft dodgers, and its promotion by Agudat Yisrael amounted to a potential crime of fraud and breach of trust, Beliak said.

Beliak added that he intended to use all parliamentary tools at his disposal to ensure proper oversight on the issue.Finance Ministry Budget Department head Yoav Gardos reiterated in a letter to Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee (FADC) legal adviser Adv. Miri Frenkel-Shor the necessary conditions for sanctions to be effective. Gardos wrote the letter at Frenkel-Shor’s request, ahead of a series of committee meetings this week regarding sanctions on haredi draft dodgers.

ULTRA-ORTHODOX men protest against the haredi draft, in Jerusalem last week

Conditions of the haredi draft exceptions 

According to Gardos, the first necessary principle was that there not be a “cutoff age” after which haredim will be exempt from service since this serves as an incentive for haredim to remain in yeshivot and out of the workforce until reaching this age.

A second principle was there had to be a link between the individual’s choice of whether or not to enlist and the sanction in question. If the sanction, for example, is applied to the entire pool of potential haredi draftees, or even to a specific yeshiva, the individuals themselves will not bear direct responsibility for their actions, and therefore may not change their behavior.

A third principle, according to Gardos, was that sanctions needed to apply immediately, since any “adaption period” would likely lead more haredim to the conclusion that a solution to exempt them from service will eventually be found, and therefore they will hold off on enlistment.

Finally, Gardos argued that there needed to be a guarantee in the law that the sanctions not be offset by other benefits to haredim. This will completely undermine the sanctions’ effectiveness, and not lead haredim to enlist, he wrote. 

 

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-842308?