Haredi Future on Risk?
Revealed: The One Woman Standing Between Yeshiva Students and Military Service
Key legal advisor's potential opposition threatens new legislation regulating yeshiva students' military service exemptions, creating coalition crisis and raising concerns about law's survival.
A significant crisis is brewing within the governing coalition, specifically among the Haredim, over the long-delayed Draft Law aimed at regulating the status of yeshiva students. The source of the panic is the potential opposition from the legal advisor to the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Miri Frankel Shur, whose dissent could doom the legislation in the High Court of Justice (Bagatz).
The mounting tensions were made public when Committee Chairman MK Boaz Bismuth (Likud) announced the cancellation of all scheduled debates on the draft law this week. The official reason cited was that the committee's legal counsel had "not yet completed the formulation of the final draft," requiring more time for "legal processing."
Behind the Official Denials
While the Committee’s spokesperson's office quickly moved to deny reports of direct opposition from Frankel Shur to the compromises reached between Bismuth and the Haredi parties, senior Haredi sources paint a dramatically different picture.
According to these officials, Frankel Shur is actively "raising difficulties" in drafting the bill based on the current political agreements.
The Haredi leadership's concern is existential:
"The legal advisor will oppose the agreed-upon text, which will lead to the opposition of the Knesset's legal advisor and is essentially a dramatic event impacting the regulation of the status of Yeshiva students," one senior official stated.
The Bagatz Test and the Pressure Campaign
The core of the issue is the anticipated legal challenge. Coalition members widely acknowledge that Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara will certainly oppose the bill. Therefore, securing the backing of the Knesset's legal counsel is viewed as the only way, even with a slim chance, to successfully defend the law before the High Court judges. Without this support, the law is seen as having no chance of passing judicial scrutiny.
In response, a "pressure campaign" is reportedly underway by the Haredi factions and the wider coalition to convince Frankel Shur to endorse the current, politically agreed-upon text.
"If she objects," warned a Haredi senior official involved in the matter, "all our work will be for nothing. The law might be approved in the Knesset, but it will be annulled by the High Court of Justice, and the regulation of the status of Yeshiva students will not happen."
The fate of the controversial legislation, and potentially the stability of the governing majority, now hangs on the legal interpretation of one key, non-political figure.