Deputy Attorneys General Adv. Avital Sompolinsky and Adv. Gil Limon sent a letter to Amir Medina, Acting Director-General of the Ministry of Labor, regarding the support eligibility tests for the upcoming school year (2025-2026), which relate to the financing of tuition in daycare centers and family-based daycares.
In their letter, they referred to the Supreme Court ruling in a petition concerning the eligibility of parents obligated to enlist for subsidies based on religious studies, which established a transitional period for the cessation of eligibility. Following the ruling, the Minister of Labor published updated support tests, which included a provision ending the alternative eligibility for religious students required to enlist, effective March 2025.
The deputies noted that, in light of hundreds of requests submitted to change the subsidy criteria and reports of instructions from certain parties to circumvent the requirements, a new procedure was formulated, defining document requirements for applicants seeking a change in employment status starting March 2025, in order to prevent fictitious transitions. The procedure was recently approved and published.
The deputies then raised two principal points. The first concerns the difficulty of enforcing subsidies when a parent is employed in a business of a spouse or a religious institution—a situation in which it is difficult to examine whether the parent meets the eligibility conditions. According to the deputies, “There is a conceptual difficulty in granting subsidies based on a criterion whose fulfillment cannot be verified, and consequently, enforcing it is impossible.”
The second point relates to military service. They argue that “granting direct subsidies on a significant scale to encourage employment or studies of a person whose legal obligation is military enlistment is incompatible with the duty to enlist and with the principle of the rule of law.”
The deputies propose examining the possibility of including in the support tests a condition requiring the regularization of status with military authorities as a prerequisite for receiving the subsidy, regardless of the qualifying criterion.
At the conclusion of the letter, they called for the formulation of a structured and reasoned decision regarding the support tests, in light of the complexities presented.