Hit Them Where It Hurts

It wasn’t long before it became clear where the pair’s brotherly love ended. In the coalition negotiations with the Likud–Yisrael Beitenu bloc led by Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, Lapid declared loud and clear: “I won’t sit in government with the chareidim.” And for the next two years, under the tender mercies of Yair Lapid’s economic stewardship, the brothers inflicted financial pain on chareidi men, women, and children that is remembered to this day.

Nine years on, and it seems nothing has changed. United once again under the anti-Netanyahu flag — this time as joint prime ministers, with Avigdor Lieberman as co-conspirator — Bennett and Lapid have unleashed the dogs of anti-chareidi war with a slashing blow to the financial stability of thousands of chareidi families.

Last week, Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman and head of the secularist Yisrael Beitenu party announced that beginning September, families in which one spouse was in “non-employment-related studies” — code for kollel — would no longer qualify for government-subsidized child care.

For 18,000 chareidi families, Lieberman’s opening salvo was very bad news. It meant the end of a monthly subsidy worth NIS 1800 per child under the age of three, which in many families applies to more than one child.