This comes after the Breslov hassidim received a framework that allows for NIS 10 million to be used in their Rosh Hashanah pilgrimages to Uman, Ukraine.
MK Yitzhak Goldknopf, United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party, is demanding a new framework be put in place to enable the financing of the Chabad Hassidim’s annual trip to New York with government resources and special exceptions for draft dodgers.
Goldknopf asks for a similar treatment that the Breslov hassidim received with the latest framework that allows for NIS 10 million to be used in their Rosh Hashanah pilgrimages to Uman, Ukraine.
“I would like to respectfully raise an additional request that has come up in many inquiries directed to my office from heads of yeshivas and important rabbis from the Chabad community: to expand the framework so it also includes the thousands of Chabad Hassidim who travel every year during the holidays to be with their spiritual leader,” Goldknopf said in the letter.
“For them too, it is a spiritual experience of the highest order that has no substitute, and it is our duty to allow them the same rights granted to others,” he added.
Yitzhak Goldknopf at a United Torah Judaism meeting at the Knesset, Jerusalem, May 19, 2025. (credit: OREN BEN HAKOON/FLASH90)
What is the framework for the Rosh Hashanah pilgrimages to Uman?
The framework, Maariv reported, would allow some 5,000 draft dodgers to participate in the Rosh Hashanah pilgrimages to Uman without restriction when leaving the country.
This exception would apply only to those with a military exemption related to their yeshiva enrollment and those whose status was affected by the expiration of the exemption law.
Lapid: “Why should our tax money fund flights to Uman?”
MK Yair Lapid, the opposition leader and chair of Yesh Atid, criticized the government’s decision to allow draft dodgers to fly to Moldova using public funds.
“Why should our tax money fund flights to Uman? Since when does the government fund flights abroad for private citizens? And why on earth is Deri demanding a plan that would allow draft dodgers to fly? The only place they need to fly to is jail,” he posted on X/Twitter.
Avigdor Liberman, the head of Yisrael Beytenu, also opposed the decision: “A government that, during wartime, sanctifies and encourages draft evasion has no right to exist.”
