Interior Minister and Shas chairman Eli Yishai wrote on Thursday that the Tal Law, which was struck down by the High Court of Justice on Tuesday as unconstitutional, would be extended for another year despite the ruling.

Writing in the Shas weekly Yom Layom, he said that more time would be needed in order to draft new legislation to address the issue of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) enlistment in the army.

The Tal Law will expire on August 1, and the High Court ruled that the Knesset cannot renew it.

Yishai added that it was the Finance Ministry that was preventing more haredim from enlisting because for budgetary reasons.

“Two battalions are waiting to be drafted, but the IDF isn’t drafting them because of a lack of funds,” Yishai wrote. “There are hundreds more waiting to enlist in national service programs.”

He also claimed that the haredi community was being made into a “sacrificial offering for the benefit of both politicians dealing with primary elections and those trying to establish new parties.

“There won’t be a yeshiva student who will need to leave the Torah world,” he added in comments made to the haredi weekly Mishpacha. “[Incumbent] upon us, as representatives of the community, is the responsibility to ensure this.”

In response to Yishai’s statements, MK Yohanan Plesner, chairman of the Knesset working group for the implementation of the Tal Law, and long time advocate of draft reform, said that the Shas chairman was simply “expressing what Netanyahu has been whispering behind closed doors,” that he has no intention of abiding by the High Court ruling.

Plesner called Yishai’s demands for a year to draft legislation “unfounded and unnecessary,” and that a new law could be drafted within two months.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said Thursdaythat the Tal Law issue threatens the strength of the government coalition.

Speaking at the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, Liberman called for a "smart" solution that will create equal opportunities for all sectors.

In a committee meeting in October last year, Brig.-Gen. Amir Rogovski of the IDF’s Human Resources branch told the Knesset Tal Law working group that the there had been 700 applicants for the Shahar army track for haredim but only 500 places due to budgetary constraints. Rogovski said that the treasury was refusing to provide the extra funds required to draft the extra 200 haredi applicants.

Recruiting haredi soldiers is expensive under the current framework, since many of the recruits are married with children, which entitles soldiers to a supplementary army income of as much as NIS 5,000 a month.

Shahar Ilan, deputy director of the Hiddush religious freedom lobbying group, said that there are probably enough haredim to draft at least one more battalion, but that the IDF does not want another sectarian-based unit, as they are seen as a threat to democracy with the possibility of them becoming a private army.

There is already one battalion dedicated to haredim, Netzah Yehudah, which drafts more than 500 soldiers every year. The army is understood to be reluctant to create another battalion on the same bases.

“If Netanyahu wants Yair Lapid’s polling numbers to get back up to 20 [Knesset] seats, then ignoring the High Court ruling is a good way of going about it,” Ilan added.

Rabbi Shmuel Auberach, a leading figure in the ultra-Orthodox non- Hassidic community, wrote a strongly worded article on Thursday published on the front page of the Degel Hatorah mouthpiece Yated Neeman, attacking the notion of drafting yeshiva students.

He called the ruling a decree to uproot religion “which we are commanded to protect with our lives without exception, God forbid, in order to sanctify the name of Heaven.”

“The purpose of this awful decree is to harm the heart of Judaism, this cannot be in Israel,” Auerbach added.

Auerbach is considered to be the closest disciple to Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the current undisputed leader of the “Lithuanian” non-Hassidic world. Elyashiv is 101 however and has been hospitalized for several weeks in serious condition. Jpost.com staff contributed to this report. (© 1995-2011, The Jerusalem Post 02/23/12)