... if non-Haredim can also compete for the top 1,800 spots to study Torah.

So who will get the 1800 exemptions? I can guess, those with protectsia, meaning an influential father who is a member of knesset, or a big rav, or some one with a lot of wealth. And what about those who are really qualified to devote their life to learning? No deferment! So we are beginning a 'season' of Orwillian Animal Farm, that all are equal but some are more equal! Thank you Naftali Bennett for your great ideas...

I have said time and again not to trust Bennett, and I am right. he is as bad as the charidim. Lapid must put his foot down and stop this nonsense immediately. These proposals cannot be government policy and if they are new elections immediately to show this religious blood suckers who is boss! Let Bennett get away with this and we are done for. He is showing his true colors of enforcing his way of life and beliefs on the citizens of Israel. No different from Big Brother and 1984.

Inadequate and unfair. You have to stop playing games and start tratin everyone fairly. All should share the same burden.

Physics is more meaningful and more complicated by far than Torah, so why so many will be exempted to study the latter? But still, it's a good beginning for year One. Make it half of the number in year Two. A commendable move in the right direction, Minister Bennett, but not a perfect one.

Naftali Bennett is great and after Bibi he will most probably be the next PM

I am sure that Bennett has done his homework on this issue. This is not a man who puts forth half-baked ideas. Look at all he has accomplished in his life already.

Its the same old pathetic crap from the past. Bennett is just another two bit humbug.

What a message pay for parasites to waste their time for three years - in fact pay extra taxes to do so - at the expense of our children struggling to pay for university - the better solution would be to privatize the yeshivot or close them down - an end to public finance for Yeshivot

This is not the equal sharing of the burden as promised by Lapid. I voted for Lapid and I am now waiting for him to say something about this ridiculous proposal. In three years we may not even have the same government!

LMAO,,,,,,,,,, the Three Stooges, Charlie Chaplin, Laural and Hardy, Groucho Marx, Don Rickles, Richard Pryor, Amos and Andy, W.C. Feilds,,,,,,,,, The little Rascals couldn't have done better,,, thinks of some jokesters, somemore comedians and clowns folks. Service to ones country is not a JOKE.

the others finish IDF or national service and go then to kollel? The state starts paying them again?

Stop pandering to those who ought top know better. Most of them if not all of them would love to get out there, learn the skills to pay the bills and free themselves from the bogus Rabbis who have done nothing but enslave them to poverty. These Rabbis know nothing about true yiddishkeit. They featherbed their institutions with bogus students in order to draw funds from the government. They are bogus moochers who pine to the uber dumb parents who may be reeling from poor economic conditions. The patents rationalize the situation by pretending their kids are following a Jewish way. Nothing could be further from the truth. The result is that these kids are relegated to a life of poverty and nothingness. How do I know? Let's just say I know. My kids would have ended up this way. Thank god I screamed blue murder when it became apparent to me what was happening. I told them in no uncertain terms that I wasn't going to be around to wipe their ass forever and that they better get it together or make the street their new home. They got the message.

This is an insult to the hard working , tax paying, IDF serving people of this country, once again the harideem get special benefits, they contribute nothing while milking the system dry, reading fairy tales all day is not a proffession it is a cop out and not acceptable, we are no longer prepared to fund this so called life style of theirs,

things, they'd be prohibited long time ago"... :-))

This sounds like the tripe Bibi was putting out before elections. They can study Torah AFTER they serve, not before. Otherwise, they will continue their parasitic draining of Israeli taxes, and they'll do it while being married and having 3 kids by that time. Time to end this charade once and for all!

The IDF is about to get its budget slashed which will result in the cancelation of many systems designed to protect soldiers ( probably including Iron Dome spending )but at the same time the IDF is going to be having to spend billions of dollars of its much smaller budget drafting the hared they neither want or need. The days of wars where we needed huge amounts of manpower are over and the IDF wants to cut the number of seculars serving and replacing them with unmanned vehicles etc. Drafting the haredi will cost billions the IDF don't want them but the likes of Bennet and Lapid want them in the army so the needs and recourses available to the IDF are put second and popularist politics takes priority.

If we want Israel to be a "Jewish" state, it has to promote Torah learning - not find ways to undermine it. The state's number one priority should be to expand Torah learning, and create more environments where Torah learning are accessible to a wider audience. Reducing the number of full-time Torah students in any context runs directly counter that those ideals - the very ideals which have maintained the sanctity and robustness of Jewish life in the Diaspora during two thousands years of Exile. G-d's love of the Jewish people is only manifest when Jews learn and practice Torah. Reducing full-time students to a dismal 1800 out of a population of some six million is a pitifully sad and sick joke. It is hard to understand someone who professes to be "religious" working against religious people and religious ideals.

You are very talented.

Also like Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Are you one of those who is pushing for burqas in Raanana and Kfar Saba, for closing Highway 4 on the Sabbath? Ata matzhik oti.

We wouldn't want the settler-producing Hesder yeshivot to come under a public microscope for getting bigger perks than everyone else. Once everyone will be doing service, it would be unfair for the Hesder students to get a reduced military service (aside from their subsidized time studying) while the black hats are forced to serve right away. It is true that the Hesder students serve with distinction in the IDF. They also get indoctrinated during their subsidized schooling to support very far right wing settler mania, which is arguably as big a threat to Israel and any future peace process, as the lazy Haredim. The whole Yeshiva world stinks!

is very against Tora students,and Lapid was elected because he promised them what they wanted to hear. Bennett is just trying to save what can be saved.

A three year exemption means that while other conscripts get paid a few hundred shekels a month, these guys would be getting a full salary to support their growing families.

Why can they not do some form of service?

Because i have been paying for my son to sit and learn. i have never heard of getting any money for learning! And even though he finished learning all of Shas by age 18, no one ever offered to pay his betuch leumi! So, first let's be real on this point. then again, I do have another son who served as an IDF commander in Nachal Hareidi- a special forces combat soldier. He did not receive a scholarship for college, by the way. In addition, the IDF recently offered him to return to the army because they are sooo overloaded with Hareidi recruits they just can't cope with the unbelievable enlistment! But what of the MANY non religious young men and women who want exemptions? Why is THIS not an issue, too? For instance, just because a guy is a very good musician or an actor, why do they get an exemption without question? While all this is going on, i sure hope our politicians will really be fair!

One of the documents at the foundation of the State was the Status Quo agreement between David Ben-Gurion and the Agudat Yisrael, protecting the religious establishment based on the British model, and the exemption of Yeshivah students from conscription. It is Bennett who is changing the law.

The Haredim ought learn Skillds of War and Work for the Shoah Proved Self Defence is Vital.Even in the Times of the days of old they fought and the Torah predicts Large Wars.