The fight over the disputed transfer of funds to the main ultra-Orthodox (haredi) party-affiliated school networks escalated again on Sunday, after Hiddush, one of the petitioners in the case, sent an urgent letter demanding that the Knesset Finance Committee and its legal advisers receive the full factual basis before Tuesday’s renewed discussion on the remaining NIS 98 million still frozen by court order.
The move comes days after the High Court of Justice last week ordered the Finance Committee to reconvene and hold a fresh deliberation on the unpaid portion of the transfer after indicating that the original December 25, 2025 approval process had been unlawful and that lawmakers had not been given an adequate factual basis for an informed vote.
The court said the new decision must be made only after committee members receive all material they consider necessary and noted that the committee intended to meet on Tuesday. The practical issue now before the committee is narrower than the broader public controversy: not the roughly NIS 800m. already transferred, but the remaining NIS 98m. still covered by the interim order.
Money was advanced before committee approval
Still, the underlying dispute remains the same. Petitioners have argued that most of the money was advanced before committee approval and that the committee was asked to ratify the transfer without the data needed to determine what deductions or offsets should have been made.
In Sunday’s letter, Hiddush deputy director and legal adviser Dr. Yifat Solel, writing on behalf of Democrats MK Naama Lazimi, asked Knesset legal adviser Sagit Afik, Finance Committee legal adviser Shlomit Ehrlich, and committee chairman Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky to ensure that lawmakers receive what she described as the complete information needed for an informed decision ahead of Tuesday’s session.
The letter explicitly cites the High Court’s March 25 decision and argues that without the requested data, the committee cannot lawfully approve the remaining funds. The document lays out a sweeping list of information Hiddush says the committee still lacks. At its center is the question of how much money should have been offset from the networks because of schools that did not fully comply with core curriculum requirements.
The letter points to material the state filed in a separate core-studies case and argues that the Education Ministry has long held information that could affect how much funding the networks were actually entitled to receive.
The letter also seeks data on schools removed from the networks for failing threshold core-studies requirements, as well as on how much Chinuch Atzmai – the main party-linked Ashkenazi haredi school network – should have lost when the state stopped using it as a conduit for funding certain exempt schools.
It also calls for updated calculations on teacher salaries and student enrollment, details on management budgets, and the legal basis for an added six-percent administrative component, district-basket payments, transportation costs, and itemized explanations for categories previously described only as ‘actions’ or ‘special actions.’
Hiddush further argues that the data may show not only that the frozen NIS 98m. should be reduced but also that even the roughly NIS 800m. already transferred exceeded what should have been paid, meaning additional sums might need to be offset from future monthly payments.
This is the petitioners’ position, not a court finding at this stage, and the High Court’s latest decision stopped short of ordering any reconsideration of the money already disbursed. For now, the concrete relief remains limited to the unpaid portion.
That distinction is important. In last week’s ruling, the justices steered away, for now, from the more explosive retroactive question of whether money already paid out, including sums said to have gone toward salaries, would have to be clawed back. Instead, the court chose a narrower procedural remedy: a reset vote on the remaining frozen funds, backed by fuller information.
The committee and its chairman were ordered to update the court after the new decision, no later than April 15. The renewed committee discussion, therefore, becomes a test not only of the substance of the transfer, but also of whether the Knesset will now insist on the factual record the court said was missing the first time.
Hiddush’s letter is advocacy from a petitioner with a direct stake in the outcome, and some of its conclusions will likely be contested by the state and by representatives of the haredi school networks. But it sharpens the central issue ahead of Tuesday’s meeting: whether the government can justify the remaining NIS 98m. with a transparent, itemized calculation, or whether closer scrutiny will show that the figure should be reduced further.