Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara delivered a major economic blow to the yeshiva world today (Wednesday), ruling that Torah institutions attended by draft-eligible students who fail to report for military service will no longer qualify for tax benefits for donors.
According to her decision, yeshivas in which draft-age students evade enlistment in the Israel Defense Forces will no longer be able to grant donors income tax credits under Section 46 of Israeli law.
The haredi response was swift, led by Degel HaTorah chairman MK Moshe Gafni, who launched a harsh attack against the attorney general.
“This is an open declaration of war against the Torah world and Judaism in the State of Israel," Gafni declared. “This is no longer a legal question - it is a systematic and obsessive ideological persecution against the haredi community and against everything that represents the Jewish identity of the state."
He added that, in his view, the attorney general is abusing her authority and “using her powers to harm Torah scholars and their institutions in an unacceptable manner."
Gafni continued: “I call on the public not to surrender to improper dictates and not to accept a reality in which a legal official runs the country and decides against its most basic values."
Toward the end of his remarks, Gafni directly blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for allowing Baharav-Miara to remain in office.
“It is inconceivable that such a severe move should pass in silence," he said. “I do not understand how Prime Minister Netanyahu continues to keep her in her position. This is a grave failure, and I call on him to put an immediate end to this situation. It is unacceptable for the State of Israel to be led by someone who consistently acts against Judaism and against its Torah-observant citizens."
United Torah Judaism chairman MK Yitzhak Goldknopf also condemned the decision.
“It appears that the attorney general has lost all restraint and boundaries in her war against Torah scholars in the Holy Land," Goldknopf said. “The request submitted to the court is a serious attempt to carry out a maneuver against the Torah world and harm the ability of donors to assist Torah students, instead of the state funding the yeshivas as it was supposed to do."
He argued that Section 46 was intended to encourage donations to public institutions, “not to serve as a punitive tool or become an enforcement mechanism for the draft law."
“Revoking the benefit is collective punishment - disproportionate and immoral," he added.
Goldknopf concluded by comparing the situation to organizations that encouraged military refusal during protests.