Gov’t secretary Yossi Fuchs made an illegal threat against labor ministry accountant to force him to approve financial transfers to families for daycare subsidies, including to haredi families whose father had not reported for IDF service and were therefore illegible, the attorney-general’s office charged on Monday morning.
In a sharply worded letter, Deputy AG Gil Limon wrote to Fuchs that he did not have the authority to give ministry accountants directives, nor to threaten them with “consequences” if they failed to respect the order.
Continuing to subsidize daycare
The government has been trying to circumvent the legal barrier to continue subsidizing daycare for haredi yeshiva students. The government’s ministerial committee on legislation approved on Sunday a bill proposal to that effect, but the AG’s office ruled the proposal unconstitutional, as it enabled illegal draft evasion.
The secretary’s attempt to force the issue came after the labor ministry’s legal advisor heeded a prior AG ruling in September and refused to approve a measure that would have allowed for all daycare subsidies only until the end of November. The AG allowed subsidies for yeshiva students to continue until then as an organization period, but said that there was no reason to limit all other eligible parents to that period.
The government did not amend the decision and subsidies have stalled since the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year. Limon wrote in his letter to Fuchs that the latter’s accusation that the AG was preventing the subsidies was “false,” since the government was responsible for finding a legal solution to the problem.
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