Supreme Court Targets Yeshiva Students With Economic Pressure
When the State cannot force Torah learners into the army, it tries to break them with fines and financial persecution.
The assault on lomdei Torah took yet another step forward Monday, as Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of a left-wing petition seeking to cancel the National Insurance (Bituach Leumi) subsidy for yeshiva students deemed “draft dodgers.”
According to the decision, the State has 30 days to announce how long the “adjustment period” will last before cutting the subsidy entirely.
The petition, filed back in January, followed the Court’s earlier ruling declaring it “illegal” for the government to subsidize yeshiva students who do not enlist. Petitioners claimed that continued benefits “lack legal authority” and violate the so-called “principle of equality,” since “the government cannot economically incentivize evasion of IDF service.” Their demand: interpret the National Insurance law to exclude anyone obligated to serve in the military.
Last week, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara—already notorious for spearheading the legal crackdown against the Torah world—announced her position: any Jew who did not serve in the IDF should be disqualified from receiving the subsidy.
Another Front in the War Against Torah
This decision exposes the real agenda behind the endless talk of “equality.” It is not about equality at all. It is about punishment. It is about using financial pressure to coerce yeshiva students out of the beis midrash.
Cutting subsidies for bnei Torah—while billions in benefits continue to flow to sectors that never serve—reveals the hypocrisy at the heart of the campaign. Arab Israelis are exempt by law. Thousands of secular Israelis avoid service annually through loopholes and exemptions. Yet only the Torah world is targeted for financial strangulation.
The True Battle
Gedolei Yisrael have already warned that the draft is not just a policy—it is a gezeiras shmad. Now, the same agenda is being extended into the realm of basic living costs. If the State cannot force yeshiva students into uniforms, it will attempt to break them with fines, taxes, and economic persecution.
But Klal Yisrael must not be fooled. Our mesorah is not sustained by subsidies. Torah existed before the State, and Torah will continue long after today’s court rulings are forgotten. As Chazal teach: “Lo yamush sefer haTorah hazeh mipicha… ki az tatzliach.” The survival of Am Yisrael depends not on the decrees of judges, but on the eternal kol Torah.