Haredim protest funding freeze

Hundreds of Haredim clashed with Is-raeli police during a protest in Jerusalem on Feb. 6, following the arrest of a haredi draft-dodger and against a bill intended to enforce the haredi enlistment into the IDF. [Yonatan Sindel/Flash90 photo]

JERUSALEM — Haredi demonstrators protesting cuts in funding over draft deferrals clashed with police in Jerusalem late last week.

The haredim also were protesting the arrest of a haredi Orthodox yeshiva student for draft dodging.

Major protests were held as well in Bnei Brak and Ashdod.

In Jerusalem, there were about a dozen arrests after protesters hurled bottles and stones at officers, according to reports.

The demonstrations came after Israel’s Supreme Court earlier in the week froze nearly $3 million in funding to haredi yeshivas until the government stops military deferments for their students and passes a new law on drafting yeshiva students.

The funding was to be withheld from yeshivas with students aged 18 to 20 who have received draft notices since last summer, but did not appear for their induction. But on Feb. 6, Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid halted all funding to the yeshivas, including freezing payments already transferred earlier in the week for the February disbursement, after discovering that the money was still being used for those students.

The Yesh Atid party, headed by Lapid, made universal draft legislation, which it also calls the “Sharing the Burden” law, one of its major campaign issues.

The Tal Law, which allowed haredi men to defer army service indefinitely, was invalidated by the Supreme Court in February 2012 and expired in August that year. Haredi yeshiva students since then have had their drafts deferred.

A government committee headed by MK Ayelet Shaked of the Jewish Home party is working to finish revising a universal draft law, which already has passed its first reading in the Knesset.