Carrie Keller-Lynn is a politician and correspondent for The Times of Israel
In its coalition agreement with incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, the ultra-Orthodox Shas party secured billions of shekels in promises to advance its key agendas, adding benefits for disadvantaged Israelis, benefits for the devout network and its institutions, and stepping up fitness services. , especially in the so-called periphery.
Laser-focusing on one’s socioeconomic and devoted priorities is a long-standing winning strategy for Shas. The party has made no independent demands for security or foreign policy and has largely acceded to Likud’s demands beyond its core interests.
In addition to the political points, the Shas secured six ministerial portfolios that will pass to its 12 legislators. The party’s leader, Aryeh Deri, will assume two of the portfolios and return to head the Interior Ministry and the Health Ministry. also be Deputy Prime Minister for the duration of the government’s mandate.
The devout and welfare portfolios will also pass to Shas, as well as two other ministers within the ministries of social welfare and education, although not at the head of these.
To assume his ministries along with the other members of Israel’s 37th government when they were sworn in Thursday, Deri pushed for a replacement of one of the fundamental laws underpinning the design of the Israeli government. Convicted of tax offences in January and suspended sentence, Deri deserves to have gone to the Central Election Commission to rule on his suitability as minister, raising the question of whether his crime was moral turpitude.
To eliminate this need, the incoming coalition on Tuesday passed a law restricting control over custodial sentences instead of suspended sentences. Netanyahu rallied his Likud party to push the legislative promise.
Deri is also expected to rotate his posts in the interior and fitness ministries to the finance ministry, midway through the government’s term. Meanwhile, it has received separate budgetary authority over the Ministry of the Interior, without the involvement of the Ministry of Finance. It also released NIS 5. 85 billion ($1. 65 billion) to improve the fitness system, with a specific focus on improving in disadvantaged and remote communities outside central Israel.
Shas presents himself as a “social” party and his election slogan was “eager for change,” a double meaning that nodded to poor families facing Israel’s emerging burden of life. The party has fulfilled one of its key election promises, securing “at least” NIS ($280 million) to renew a pre-filled card program to provide food aid to needy families. The program will operate from the Ministry of Interior in Deri.
These are the main promises of Shas’ coalition agreement with the Likud, signed on Wednesday. These coalition agreements are not legally binding and their clauses are not implemented.
In addition to securing an additional NIS billion for its food card program, Shas has demanded and signed a series of policies aimed at supporting ultra-Orthodox socio-economic development, expanding labor force participation, lowering prices related to government bureaucracy, and fighting the emerging charge of living.
They secured the government’s promise to draw up a five-year ultra-Orthodox socio-economic progression plan, touching on spaces such as housing, transport, physical care, education, strengthening local authorities, infrastructure, employment and reducing socio-economic gaps.
Israel’s ultra-Orthodox population is disproportionately close to the poverty line, with a high percentage of men opting for full-time devout studies rather than participating in the force of painting. And, because of education in a parallel formula that doesn’t come with core subjects like English and math, combined with the demanding situations of living an ultra-Orthodox way of life in a secular painting environment, many netpainting members struggle to get secure lucrative jobs.
To inspire labor force participation, the Shas agreement also includes a negative source of income taxes and tax credits for active families, the latter in the form of partial credit issues for more children.
He has also signed bills to cut red tape for independent Israelis, as well as a licensing reform to allow new immigrants to work in professions for which they have earned certifications in their home countries.
The identification of devotee degrees as equivalent to higher education degrees has also been promoted, with the aim of competing in government tenders, which list the educational needs for the positions.
To inspire the structure of around 300,000 new housing complexes to tackle Israel’s housing crisis, the party also needs to reduce bureaucratic barriers to the structure. products, reducing prices and import barriers.
In line with promises made through the Likud, Shas pledged to freeze tax rates on utilities and municipal assets, as well as review the fuel freeze and controlled prices.
Removing a specific source of anger within the ultra-Orthodox community, Shas and his ultra-Orthodox compatriot Yahadut HaTorah pledged to cancel taxes passed by the outgoing government to make single-use cutlery and sugary drinks more expensive.
Among other initiatives to reduce the cost of living, the party pledged to privatize the port of Ashdod, look for features to depreciate or subsidize low-gluten foods, the Likud promised to provide flexible education from birth to 3 years and build a new ultra-Orthodox city.
However, he would oppose the existing and questionable agricultural reforms pursued by the outgoing government, aimed at reducing protectionist barriers against food imports. Instead, Shas said he would seek a “balance” between reducing costs and strengthening domestic agriculture.
Shas, along with UTJ, is pushing for two primary laws that will exempt ultra-Orthodox men from service.
First, parties continue to push for amendments to the existing conscription law that will further reduce the recruitment quotas of the ultra-Orthodox army, allowing men to examine in devout establishments. Second, the parties are pushing for a new Basic Law: Torah Examination, which will the legal prestige of the Torah examine and could provide a more solid basis for the continuation of devout research exemptions in the service?
Along with this initiative, Shas’ policies were initiated through the Likud to fund the soldiers.
The proposals would increase the salaries of enlisted infantrymen by up to 20 percent for their time of compulsory service and raise the salary of fighting infantrymen to close to the minimum wage. Uniform School Program, in keeping with a promise made through the Likud to seek to torpedo the law in an effort to overthrow the outgoing government.
The plan would also give each soldier one year of flexible education for each year of service and create an affirmative action plan for veterans applying to study medicine, law, computer science, accounting or engineering. It would also generate resources and for foot soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Shas Party Resources said Deri sought to bring the fitness portfolio in line with the party’s to help underserved communities. Access to fitness care and resources varies widely in Israel, and disconnected communities in central regions of Israel are deprived in this regard.
In preparation to join the Ministry of Health, Deri secured an additional budget of NIS 5850 million for access and facilities. beds, baby care and decrease wait times for appointments.
Accompanied through a series of political and governmental priorities that accompany Deri to the Ministry of Health, Deri pledged to obtain this investment without the intervention of the Ministry of Finance.
Shas has focused for years on connecting and strengthening the network beyond Israel’s major cities and urban sprawl.
The party has signed pledges to further link these peripheral regions to the rest of the country, as well as to lower prices between the outer edge and the center.
Shas signed a high-speed exercise to go from Kiryat Shmona in the north to Eilat in southern Israel, expanding public shipping to the periphery, reversing the recent shipping reform, and subsidizing public transportation costs for outlying communities, canceling a planned congestion tax on highways, and backing a law to allow a Tel Aviv subway, after joining a politically motivated bloc opposing a metro bill pushed by the outgoing government.
It would also be the status quo of some other foreign airport, as well as the privatization and expansion of Haifa airport.
The party also needs to generate student discounts on public transportation and give students in yeshiva and kollel devout schools a 50 percent discount.
To inspire economic progress in the southern Negev and northern Galilee, Shas needs regions that are becoming complex centers of biotechnology and agrotechnology.
Like all parties, Shas has language in his agreement committed to preserving Israel’s “status quo” between faith and state. For Shas, this rolls back the hated reforms made by the outgoing government, as well as pushing for some new ones.
In addition to the tax on single-use utensils and sugary drinks, advertised as environmental and health problems, but noted to disproportionately affect ultra-Orthodox communities, Shas wants to reverse reforms made by former devout minister Matan Kahana.
Kahana pushed for a reform to liberalize the kosher certification market, allowing institutions and brands to be overseen by any municipal rabbinate, and in a room that will take effect in January 2023, to open the market to other Orthodox oversight providers.
Shas and UTJ need to cancel this reform, but Shas needs to unify the criteria of kashrut through the rabbinate.
Also to rescind a directive from Kahana that replaced the procedure for appointing municipal rabbis, as did the UTJ.
Other policy issues shared with the UTJ include: preserving gender-separated prayer at the Western Wall, strengthening eligibility to immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return, supporting a partial overturning of Israel’s anti-discrimination law to allow gender-separated personal occasions, and companies to refuse service based on devout belief. and a law allowing hospitals to ban Easter from unleavened foods. They also agree to form a committee to investigate the option of offering earthly burials, attending with a representative of the Chief Rabbinate committees approving permits for Shabbat paintings, and allowing rabbinical acts. courts to make your success in civil cases greater.
Shas also needs NIS 30 million ($8. 48 million) to increase the participation of ultra-Orthodox youth in the popular Taglit Birthright program that brings Jewish young adults from the Diaspora to Israel, as well as the purposeful Masa internship program.
The party also secured NIS 220 million ($62. 17 million) for the structure and renovation of buildings, adding synagogues, ritual baths and cemeteries.
While maintaining the “independence” of school systems, Shas, along with other parties, secured pledges to increase investment for exempt schools in 55% of public schools and identified non-official schools in 75% of investment in public schools.
These largely exempt non-official schools will get investment grants, without having to integrate core subjects like math, English and science into their studies.
Along with those pledges, Shas signed a commitment to education in public schools in Bible studies and core subjects like math, English and science. He also pushed for the categories of Zionist history and heritage for all religions in public schools, adding Christians and Muslims.
The party also vowed to cancel the outgoing government’s questionable reform of registration exams.
The Department of Education will also work to integrate schools into its long-standing New Horizons program, which funds small organizing jobs between teachers and students and increases teacher salaries, among other initiatives.
Religious studies establishments in yeshivas and kollels have also obtained increased funding. The scholars of Kollel are married and many have children; Both Shas and UTJ are expected to point to adjustments affecting childcare subsidies, which the outgoing government has sought to withdraw from full-time devoted academics.
The programmes for ultra-Orthodox youth at risk will get an additional investment of NIS 30 million for technical schools as well as for the formation of villages of at-risk youth.
Among other proposals, Shas also secured a pledge and state investment for a Sephardic Jewish heritage center to honor its late non-secular leader and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. With UTJ, he supports the cancellation of the outgoing government’s kosher cell phone reform program that would have opened the closed market, as well as the provision of web-based government facilities and public shipping tickets for users without web or smartphones, who are intentionally lost in ultra-Orthodox circles.
They also signed on to pass a stalled climate bill, adding a pledge to reduce Israel’s greenhouse fuel emissions by 50% below 2015 degrees by 2030, and to propose a “humanitarian solution” to connect illegal West Bank outposts to electricity.
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