The Knesset plenum approved legislation Friday, just ahead of the body's summer dispersal, requiring key government agencies to deliver official notifications via recorded voice messages to citizens whose phones cannot receive text messages, a measure aimed squarely at the Haredi community's widespread use of so-called kosher phones. The bill, sponsored by Deputy Communications Minister Israel Eichler, passed its second and third readings with 16 lawmakers in favor and none opposed.
Under the new law, the Israel Tax Authority, the Population and Immigration Authority, and the National Insurance Institute will be required to send a recorded voice message to any mobile number that cannot receive SMS texts, in parallel with the standard digital notification sent to other citizens. The message must be sent with confirmation of receipt or repeated a reasonable number of times, and recipients must be able to replay it for at least 30 days.
The legislation responds to a longstanding problem for thousands of Haredi families who use kosher phones, devices stripped of internet access and text messaging in keeping with rabbinic guidance, and who have struggled as a result to receive essential notifications from government bodies that have increasingly moved services online. The explanatory notes accompanying the bill state that the digital communications requirement placed on public bodies must be fulfilled in a way that adequately serves those who lack digital literacy or the means to access such services.
The law will be phased in over as long as three years, with 60 percent of common government services required to be made accessible within two years. Lawmakers also added a requirement that agencies collect data on which services they have made digitally accessible in Arabic, Amharic, and Russian.
Eichler welcomed the bill's passage, saying it delivers an important development for the public that follows the guidance of its rabbinic leaders and abstains from non-kosher technology, and said that community deserves the same rights afforded to every other public in Israel. He added that he was glad the legislation passed just before the Knesset's dispersal, and said he would push in the next Knesset to expand the law to cover all government authorities sending necessary voice notifications to phone users without text capability.
It is not the first such measure Eichler has advanced. He previously pushed through a measure that eliminated fees for data overage charges tied to remote learning lines, a change that saved thousands of Haredi families significant sums.
The bill follows a series of measures in recent years addressing kosher phone infrastructure, including a 2024 law that gave carriers legal grounds to continue offering restricted plans exclusively to Haredi consumers and shielded those subscriptions from Israel's number portability reforms, a measure that drew criticism from opponents who argued it entrenched control over consumers by rabbinic committees and carriers.
