Israel Matzav

Jewish Home party having second thoughts?

The Jewish Home party is having second thoughts over the Haredi draft law (officially known as the Equal Burden law) and is threatening not to support the Electoral Reform law unless changes are made to the Equal Burden law (link in Hebrew). The Electoral Reform law is due to come up for a second and third reading on Monday, and would raise the minimum percentage a party needs to get into the Knesset from the current two seats to four seats. (The MK's from the three Arab parties, which each have between three and four seats, have threatened to resign en masse if the Electoral Reform law passes). While a majority of the Knesset favors the Electoral Reform law, it is a basic law and therefore requires 61 votes. If Jewish Home does not show up to vote on it, there is a good chance it won't pass. That's the leverage that Jewish Home has.

Jewish Home is demanding three changes in the Equal Burden law. First, a declaration that the State values the study of Torah. The other two changes are more substantial. They are demanding the cancellation of both the economic and criminal sanctions against individual yeshiva students, and the cancellation of budget loss to yeshivas who don't send enough students to the army. Instead, they want to reward yeshivas that do send enough students to the army with increased budgets. The other change is to calculate the overall Haredi participation rate in the IDF, rather than calculating for each yeshiva individually.

Sounds like Sunday's prayer rally scared someone. There were more than a few knitted kipot (skullcaps) in the crowd.

Labels: Ayelet Shaked, God, Haredim, IDF, Jewish Home party, Naftali Bennett, peaceful demonstrations, Torah

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:27 PM