Israel's Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered that the planned cut to daycare stipends for certain religious families be delayed until the next school year.
The cut, proposed last year by Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman (Yisrael Beytenu), would eliminate daycare subsidies for families which have a father who is enrolled full-time in yeshiva.
Wednesday's decision was made by a majority of two of three justices.
In a hearing two months ago, Supreme Court justices questioned why the decision to cut stipends for these families had been made so quickly and only after the new school year began - two factors which made it difficult for the affected families to find alternative options.
During that hearing, the Supreme Court demanded that the State provide answers to the question of why the subsidy cut could not be postponed until the next school year.
In response, the State provided the court with a 70-page response and announced that the cut would only take effect from January 2022. This, it said was enough of a delay, and no further delay should be required.
The Supreme Court then suggested delaying the implementation of the decision until after Passover 2022, providing families with four additional months to prepare. The State representatives left the courtroom to discuss the proposal with the ministers, but then returned with the response that Liberman had rejected the compromise. It was at that point that the justices decided to order the cut delayed until September 2022.