Rights10/13/2026

HCJ Linked Yeshiva Funding and Benefits to Compliance With the Duty to Enlist

In June 2024, the HCJ unanimously ruled that, without a law exempting yeshiva students from service, the state is obligated to draft them and may not fund the studies of those who are subject to the draft but do not serve. The author of the Zman.co.il article argues that the government’s subsequent budgetary decisions weakened the ruling’s economic impact.

Key facts

•Case: HCJ 6198/23
•Court: Supreme Court of Israel sitting as the High Court of Justice
•Ruling: June 2024
•Interim order: April 2024
•Discontinued funding: approximately 650 million shekels per year
•Law: Military Service Law

What the Court Decided

In HCJ 6198/23, the court stated that the absence of a valid exemption does not allow the state to avoid applying the Military Service Law to yeshiva students. At the same time, the court found that there was no authority to continue payments to religious educational institutions for students who are obligated to serve but are not drafted. An interim order halting the relevant funding had already taken effect in April 2024.

The Cost to Yeshivas and Families

According to the Israel Democracy Institute estimate cited in the article, the discontinued funding amounted to approximately 650 million shekels per year. On average, this was approximately 5,000 shekels per year for an unmarried yeshiva student and 10,000 shekels for a married avrech. Beginning in March 2025, the families of avrechim obligated to serve also stopped receiving daycare subsidies—an average of approximately 26,400 shekels per family per year.

How the Government Mitigated the Consequences

According to Zman.co.il’s analysis, the state continued channeling large sums to the ultra-Orthodox education system through other budget items and coalition funds. In 2024, support for religious institutions reached approximately 1.7 billion shekels, while in 2026 the overall yeshiva budget, according to the cited estimate, grew to approximately 1.9 billion shekels. Government Decision No. 3971 of March 10, 2026, allocated 1.269 billion shekels to the program supporting religious institutions.

Daycare Subsidies and Restrictions

The cancellation of daycare subsidies was postponed for more than six months and effectively took effect in early March 2025. Coalition lawmakers later advanced Bill P/4931/25, which proposed determining eligibility for a place and a subsidy based on the mother’s employment or studies, without considering the father’s status; it passed a preliminary reading, but its advancement stopped after elections were called. The article also reports that, after failure to comply with summonses and procedures under “Order 12,” a person may be designated a draft evader, entailing a ban on leaving the country.

What this means for you

For a family in which a yeshiva student is obligated to serve, failure to comply with the duty to enlist may affect state payments and the daycare subsidy and, following the prescribed procedures, the ability to leave Israel. For the yeshivas themselves, the ruling means that the state may not pay for students who are subject to the draft and do not serve, although other funding for the institution may continue under other budget items.

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Case analysis based on court rulings