Video: The Jerusalem faction demonstrating on Route 4 to protest the arrest of a deserter (Photo: Niv Aharonson)
In an interview with an ultra-Orthodox newspaper, Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs pledged to promote a law in the next session that would exempt young Haredim from conscription and would be immune from judicial review. "A draft law will be passed immune from judicial review. If for this there will be a need for a Basic Law on Torah study, then we will discuss it," Fuchs told the weekly Be'BaFamily. This is despite the fact that last week the Likud announced that the Basic Law on Torah study was not on the agenda.
The interview indicates that the law will also include an override clause, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said in interviews in foreign media that he decided to waive the override clause in the legal revolution. According to Fuchs, the Likud's announcement was "probably a quick response to an event with far-reaching public implications, so maybe the reaction is a little too harsh."
Yossi Fuchs on the cover of a family newspaper (Photo: official website, family newspaper)
Last week, the Torah Judaism faction submitted the Basic Law: Torah Study, which would establish that Torah study in Israel is a fundamental value of the Jewish people. This is a proposal designed to provide a solution for ultra-Orthodox Jews whose "Torah is their art" and do not enlist in the IDF, so that studying will be equivalent to being drafted into the IDF, and the High Court of Justice will not be able to claim inequality between those who serve and those who study.
The bill states that "the State of Israel, as a Jewish state, attaches utmost importance to encouraging Torah study and Torah learners," and accordingly, the initiators of the law propose to "properly anchor in Basic Law the great importance and value that the state sees in Torah study, and its desire to encourage Torah study." The bill also states that "those who undertake to devote themselves to Torah study, for a significant period of time, will be considered as serving the State of Israel and the Jewish people, and that this will have an impact on their rights and obligations."
Sources close to the prime minister angrily appealed to the leaders of the ultra-Orthodox factions for the fact that the bill was submitted at such a sensitive time. Sources in Degel HaTorah and Shas responded that the proposal in the current version was not submitted in coordination with them, but rather by a decision of a single Knesset member from the Agudat Yisrael faction. After media reports, the Likud clarified that "the bill is not on the agenda and will not be advanced."
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