Haredi yeshivas with draft dodgers will no longer receive tax-exempt donations, AG says
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara determined on Wednesday that tax exemptions will be withdrawn from ultra-Orthodox yeshivas whose students fail to obey conscription orders from the military.
In an update to the High Court of Justice on the issue, the attorney general asserted that “the state cannot continue to indirectly finance” religious institutions that enroll men who have failed to report for military service, saying that allowing such institutions to receive tax-free donations would “encourage evasion.”
Baharav-Miara said that the tax authorities need further time to evaluate how to implement her determination, and asked the court to give the Finance Ministry until May 28 to provide an update on its efforts to do so.
The High Court has explicitly ruled that the state must not provide any funds, directly or indirectly, to such institutions, most recently in a decision on Monday in which it ordered government agencies to condition certain welfare benefits on military service as a way of revoking those benefits from ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers.
Haredi politicians lambasted Baharv-Miara in response to her........
