Education Minister Yoav Kisch Urges High Court to Dismiss Haredi Funding Petition

Education Minister Rejects Core Curriculum Petition

Israel's Education Minister Yoav Kisch submitted his formal response to the High Court of Justice on Sunday, demanding the dismissal of a petition filed by the "Hiddush – For Religious Freedom and Equality" organization. The petition challenges the state funding of ultra-orthodox (Haredi) school networks associated with the Shas and United Torah Judaism parties, alleging they fail to teach the mandatory core curriculum (math, science, and English).

In his response, Minister Kisch denied all allegations regarding the lack of core curriculum studies and argued that the state must continue to fully fund—and even increase budgets for—these educational networks.

The Teacher Qualification Dispute

Minister Kisch requested the court to lift its interim injunction and dismiss the petition, claiming that the situation has improved in recent years. He presented Ministry of Education data indicating that most institutions teach the majority of the core curriculum.

However, the minister did not dispute the fact that only 8% of the teachers in these networks are officially qualified to teach core curriculum subjects. Instead, Kisch argued that linking teacher qualification to the actual instruction of the core curriculum is a "radical claim."

Political Timing and Legal Clash

Furthermore, the Education Minister criticized Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara for presenting the requested data to the court. Kisch asserted:

"This is a political issue that should not be addressed during an election period."

This statement comes after the minister reportedly blocked the transfer of information regarding this petition for about a year, allowing the funding to continue uninterrupted for three consecutive school years.

Hiddush Slams "Fiction" of Haredi Education

Advocate Dr. Yifat Solelim, Vice President of Hiddush, strongly condemned the minister's stance, pointing out the severe lack of basic education in these state-funded schools:

"The Education Minister is asking the Supreme Court to ignore public funds that have been transferred for many years to finance English teachers who only know how to write the ABCs, math teachers who have never studied math in their lives, and science teachers who do not even know who Darwin is."

She added that this "fiction" has been defended for 27 years under the guise of a gradual corrective process, while the main effort has been finding creative ways to hide the truth. According to Solelim, this system abandons tens of thousands of children to uneducated teachers, sentencing them to a life of poverty and political dependency.