Religion & State
Yeshiva stipends
Yeshiva students should keep their state stipends even if they do not enlist.
The Supreme Court has barred public money for students who are legally required to enlist and do not report.
What is at stake
Married yeshiva students (avrechim) receive state stipends and reduced rates for childcare and municipal tax while they study full time. The Supreme Court has ruled that public money cannot go to students who are legally required to enlist and do not report. Governments have looked for ways to restore the payments ever since.
The case for
- Cutting stipends punishes large families with small children over a dispute between the state and their rabbis.
- Yeshivot are institutions of Jewish learning. The state funds other national institutions the same way.
- Financial pressure produces hardship, not recruits. An impoverished family does not report to the induction centre.
The case against
- Public money should not fund avoidance of a duty every other Israeli family carries.
- Sanctions on stipends and on institutions are the only lever that has ever moved enlistment numbers.
- Nobody's freedom to study is at stake here. What is at stake is the taxpayer's obligation to fund years of it.
Both sides get the same number of points at comparable length. That is a rule of this site, not a coincidence.
What the next Knesset could decide
This is decided in the annual budget and under the Foundations of the Budget Law, which requires a legal basis for such support. A conscription law could also tie payments to enlistment. Coalition talks turn on exactly these clauses.