If the budget is not approved by the end of March, the end of the fiscal year, the Knesset will automatically dissolve and new elections will be called.
The Shas party will not vote on Israel's 2026 state budget unless the Ministry of Finance “restores the right to participate in elections.” Haredi families to receive food voucher program“Shas party chairman Aryeh Deri said on Monday.
Israel's 2026 government budget cleared its first hurdle on Friday after winning government approval in a high-stakes annual process that could potentially trigger early elections.
From Thursday morning to mid-Friday, Israeli ministries negotiated the allocations they would receive in the budget without the participation of the haredi parties. Shas and United Torah Judaism – who left the government in July due to the development of a controversial Haredi bill.
“Shas will not support the budget in protest of the deliberate exclusion of Haredi children from the food stamp program,” Deri said.
Shas party chief Aryeh Deri and Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef visit the site of an alleged arson and vandalism at a Jerusalem synagogue that Rabbi Yosef frequents, June 8, 2025. (Photo: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)
“It is unacceptable that a poor Haredi child does not receive the minimum that a poor Arab child receives, as Treasury officials demand.”
He added that last year's food stamp project “provided assistance to 400,000 eligible families from all sectors of the economy, immigrants, seniors, Arabs, peripheries and haredim, in accordance with occupational eligibility criteria set by government ministries.”
“Now, in a puzzling and infuriating move,” Deri continued, “the Treasury Department is insisting on changing the criteria to exclude only Haredi families. This is cruel treatment of the most vulnerable families whose only 'sin' is that they are Haredi.”
The budget must be passed before the end of the financial year to avoid early elections.
budget For the law to come into force, it still has to pass three readings at the Knesset plenum. If it is not approved by the end of March, the end of the fiscal year, the Knesset will automatically dissolve and new elections will be called.
Since then, a new draft haredi bill has been proposed ahead of the state budget vote in the Knesset, with critics saying it does not enforce forced conscription into the IDF and is intended to persuade haredi parties to return to government.
