Ultra-Orthodox / Haredi - Military Service
A full, extended nine-justice panel of the High Court of Justice on 25 June 2024 ordered a full draft of haredim into the IDF and freezing all funds for institutions that do not comply. The Supreme Court decision does not include targets for how many Haredi men should be drafted and when. The decision reads that the judgment is not the forum "to discuss the details of how the law is implemented or the scale of enlistment for yeshiva students." There were currently 63,000 haredi men eligible for the draft. On 25 June 2024, the Israeli Attorney General's Office issued instructions to the army to immediately recruit 3,000 religious school students, starting next July 1, following a Supreme Court decision requiring the government to recruit these men for military service.
The court called the current exemption scheme, whereby yeshivah students receive temporary deferrals until reaching the age of exemption from service, “unconstitutional.” The law exempting yeshivah students from mandatory service expired in 2023. In its unanimous ruling, the nine-justice panel accused the government of "seriously undermining the rule of law, and the principle according to which all individuals are equal before the law." The blockbuster ruling could lead to new elections or, if not, a change in the political landscape on the issue of haredim in the IDF.
On 11 June 2024, the Knesset approved, by a majority of 63 members against 57 against, the draft conscription law on the first reading, and a second and third reading must still be voted on on the draft law in order for it to become a final law. Since 2017, successive governments have failed to reach a consensus law regarding Haredi recruitment, after the Supreme Court annulled a law enacted in 2015 that exempted them from military service, considering that the exemption violates the “principle of equality.” Since then, the Knesset has continued to extend their exemption from military service, and at the end of last March, an order issued by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to postpone the implementation of compulsory conscription for the Haredim expired.
In the first repercussions of the Israeli Knesset’s approval of the law exempting religious Jews ( Haredim ) from conscription into the Israeli occupation army, the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz reported that hundreds of families of Israeli soldiers informed Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant and Army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy that they are calling on their children to lay down their arms “immediately” and stop Fighting and return to their homes. A letter sent by the families to Galant and Halevy criticized the Knesset’s decision to approve the law that exempts the Haredim from serving in the army. According to the newspaper, the families wrote that “they no longer support the fighting in Gaza,” and the families added, “It is unreasonable for a law like this to be passed while brave soldiers sacrifice their lives,” according to the letter. The families accused the government of "betraying its citizens and sparing the lives of our children, but for the sake of political survival it keeps the lives of others safe."
The religious parties threatened to withdraw from the government if military service was imposed on their followers, knowing that this withdrawal, if it happened, would mean the fall of the government, and therefore Netanyahu is seeking to reach an agreement with these parties.
Religious Jews make up about 13% of Israel's population of approximately 9.7 million people. They do not serve in the army, and say they devote their lives to studying the Torah. The law requires every Israeli male and female over the age of 18 to serve in the military, and the exclusion of the Haredim from service has always sparked controversy over the past decades.
During his lesson Saturday 27 April 2024, Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef said that Israel's success in repelling the missiles of Iran, Hezbollah , and Hamas is due to Torah students, not to the Israeli army. He said verbatim, "They protect all the soldiers... They protect the entire people of Israel. The credit goes to them, and anyone who does not believe that is an infidel." He stressed that what happened was a "true miracle," as Israel was rained down with more than 13,000 missiles over the past few months, affecting its north and south. This was supposed to cause hundreds or thousands of victims, "but God, through His miracles, spared us." Youssef asked, “Gentlemen, who gets the credit for this? The Chief of Staff? Who gets the credit?” He replied, saying, “The credit goes to the religious school students and their preoccupation with the Torah.”
“They have to understand,” the rabbi explained, “for all these secularists who don’t understand, they have to understand that without the Torah, without the yeshivah, without the kollel (scholars of the Talmud and rabbinic literature), the Israeli army will not succeed. The army does not always win, and you have seen How did he win on Simchat Torah (the day of concluding the reading of the Torah and beginning a new concluding one)?
It is noteworthy that the Chief Rabbi of Sephardic Jews had been criticized in recent months because of his strong opposition to the recruitment of ultra-Orthodox youth into the army. Last March, Yitzhak Yosef said that the Haredim would all leave Israel if compulsory conscription was implemented among their ranks. Yitzhak Yosef, called on his supporters to leave the country if they are forced to perform military service. This call sparked angry reactions and criticism from a number of politicians in Israel, especially from opposition leader Yair Lapid and war council member Benny Gantz.
Is it possible to combine a safra and saifa – the book and the sword? Haredi is a collective term for groups of ultra-Orthodox Jews who consider themselves the most religiously authentic, and reject modern secular culture. Ultra-Orthodox parties consider military conscription a violation of their religious beliefs, fearing that military service will lead to secularization. But such exemptions from military service are widely resented by other Jewish Israelis.
Hareidim today believe they carry the burden of keeping the Sinai covenant and continuing to produce generations of God fearing, Torah learning Jews as a much greater responsibility then grunt work in the army. They also see the whole merit of Israel’s survival as having nothing to do with a strong army but on spiritual merit. They cannot believe that anyone would see the miraculous wars Israel has fought and survived as anything but an act of God.
Observers attribute the army’s unwillingness to recruit Haredim to “the General Staff’s certainty that there is no unusual motive in the Haredi sector to recruit into the army, and that the budget of each Haredi soldier is several times larger than the budget of an ordinary soldier, given that Haredim marry at an early age and have many children.” “So there is no incentive for the army to recruit them.”
Within the observant minority, both Sephardi and Ashkenazi, are many who adhere to a religious way of life, regulated by Jewish religious law, while participating in the country's national life. They regard the modern Jewish state as the first step toward the coming of the Messiah and redemption of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel. In contrast, some of the ultra-Orthodox Jews believe that Jewish sovereignty in the Land can be reestablished only after the coming of the Messiah. Maintaining strict adherence to Jewish religious law, they reside in separate neighborhoods, run their own schools, dress in traditional clothing, maintain distinct roles for men and women, and are bound by a closely circumscribed lifestyle.
Hareidim look at the rest of society and don’t like what they see. Beyond the secular, they see too many Jews who’s Judaism is lackluster and missing the intense importance and excitement that Hareidim strive to feel. They don’t want to be ‘normalized’ and therefore the battle against going to the army is for them a battle of cultural survival. It recalls to their minds every other cultural battle the Jews have fought and won. The whole Hanukkah story is one in which Greek culture tried to replace Jewish and failed.
The history of granting deferral of military service to full-time Yeshiva students (students for whom “Torah is their calling”) is in truth the history of the State of Israel itself. Israel has long had a compulsory draft, with men serving in the military for nearly three years and women for two years. However, ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jews have traditionally been exempt from military service in the country. While a negligible figure of 540 ultra-Orthodox enlisted to serve for a short period of a few days, 66,000 haredi men between ages 18 and 26 enjoy the “Torah study as full-time occupation” exemption. They insist that they have always served the society through prayer and study and helped to protect Jewish identity.
When Ben Gurion originally dealt with the issue of drafting Hareidim into the army, he came head to head the Hazon Ish, then leader of the Hareidi community. Ben Gurion met the Hazon Ish and asked this question, why should the Haredim not be drafted like everyone else. Why should the burden of security not be shared?
The Hazon Ish answered that the Hareidim are carrying a much greater and more important burden: that of the Torah. The halacha is that when two loaded animals meet on a narrow bridge, the lightly loaded donkey gives way to the heavy loaded one. Secular Jews, he said, cast off the yoke of Torah. They made themselves “free” of our laws, traditions and our great responsibility to represent God in this world. Jews made a covenant with God at Sinai and they have dropped out of it. The religious, and most prominently, the Hareidim are continuing to ensure the vitality or our authentic Jewish culture and traditions while others are happily ignoring it for western way of life and culture. Since they are not sharing the burden of being Jewish they have to give way to us for our load is much heavier.
That was the Hazon Ish’s logic and it must have had some effect because Ben Gurion did exempt the yeshiva students. In the early days, it amounted to a few hundred yeshiva students. At that time, in 1948, it was justified by the need to restore the Torah world that was destroyed in the Holocaust.
In February 1948 the Jerusalem branch of the Recruitment Centre wrote to the heads of several yeshivas who had requested postponement of their students' military service, that a three month postponement would be given to full time students who had no other occupation. Over the years the number of students receiving exemption from military service rose, and in the 1950s had reached thousands of students every year.
In 1958 Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion considered reducing the scale of the postponement, which in fact gave most of the yeshiva students complete exemption. The prime minister's plan aroused fears among leaders of the ultra-Orthodox and religious communities, including Rabbi Herzog, that it would lead to abolition of the arrangement and conscription of yeshiva students by force. Rabbi Herzog wrote to Ben-Gurion of his concern, claiming that "they, too [the yeshiva students], are enlisted and safeguard Israel's religion and heritage….. and it is due to them that we have arrived where we are today".
In his answer, Ben-Gurion explained his reasons for changing the existing arrangement, citing both security and moral considerations: "This is, first and foremost, a great moral issue: whether it is fitting that the son of one mother is killed in defence of the homeland, and another mother's son sits in his room and studies in safety, while most of the young people of Israel are risking their lives". He added: "I cannot, under any circumstances, agree with your words, that 'it is due to the yeshiva students that we have arrived at where we are today'. They did not build this country, nor did they risk their lives for its independence (although some of them did so), and they have no special rights that other Jews do not have".
Initially there was a fixed quota of Yeshiva students whose service was deferred, not exceeding about four hundred (400) Yeshiva students a year. This was the number of deferrals granted until 1970. From that year onwards the arrangement was altered to remove the limitation on the number of deferrals that could be granted. Hence, the number of Yeshiva students granted deferrals increased. In 1975, a yearly quota of 800 was established for the number of Yeshiva students who would obtain service deferral. Following the coalition agreement of 1977, the quota was abolished altogether, increasing the number of potential service deferrers.
The arrangement originated as a result of the destruction of the European Yeshivas during the Holocaust and the desire to avoid having to close Yeshivas in Israel pursuant to the enlistment of their students. Eventually, this reasoning no longer held. Israeli Yeshivas were thriving and there was no real danger that drafting Yeshiva students within any particular framework would lead to the disappearance of these institutions.
Deferrals of defense service were granted to full-time Yeshiva students (those for whom “Torah is their calling”). Joining this category was contingent on the enlistee having studied continuously in a Yeshiva High School, be it regular or vocational, since the age of 16. This category was also open to those who studied in a religious high school and whose matriculation exams included Talmud at the level of five units. The category of full-time Yeshiva students also included the newly religious.
There was the perception that the effectiveness of these students’ military service was questionable, due to the difficulties they would encounter in adjusting to the Military and the difficulties that the Military would have adjusting to them. Yeshiva students lead an ultra-Orthodox lifestyle, which made induction into the military difficult, causing them serious problems in adapting to a society and culture, which are foreign to them, and creating difficulties in respecting strict observance of religious precepts. Thus, for example, the ultra-Orthodox do not recognize the Chief Rabbinate of Israel’s certification that food is kosher, while they themselves disagree over recognition of a number of special kosher certifications by various rabbis. Similarly, other daily practices of theirs are likely to give rise to many difficulties in the IDF’s ability to integrate them.
In an effort to find a compromise solution, the “Netzah Yehuda” Association was established in 1999, which accompanies ultra-Orthodox Haredi soldiers before their recruitment, during military service, and upon their departure from civilian life. The association’s staff works in cooperation with the army and the Ministry of Security to provide an environment for Haredi soldiers during military service, ensuring the preservation of Values ??of the Orthodox community within the army.
Since the founding of the association, the number of graduates from ultra-Orthodox courses in the Israeli army has reached 21,000, out of 64,000 who are obligated to serve in the reserve, and many of them were recruited into the reserve ranks during the war on Gaza, according to data from the Israeli army recruitment office. Despite the many challenges due to the environment in which they grew up, army data shows that there are 2,800 soldiers from a Haredi Orthodox background in regular military service, out of 41,000 obligated to military service, meaning that only 6% of the Haredi public join the army, compared to 72% of the general Israeli public.
On 01 July 2011 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu submitted for Cabinet approval, a decision that would enable a significant increase in the number of ultra-orthodox young men who were drafted for military and civic service. This is in order to promote equality and a sharing of the security and economic burden among the various population groups in Israeli society. Prime Minister Netanyahu decided to adopt the recommendations that were submitted to him by IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt.-Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi and the IDF General Staff. The decision would enable the number of draftees from the ultra-orthodox sector to double over the next five years. It was expected that the number of draftees would reach 4,800 by 2015 (2,400 for military service and 2,400 for civic service). It was also agreed that the IDF would create additional combat frameworks in order to absorb the ultra-orthodox.
Prime Minister Netanyahu also decided to significantly increase and strengthen the "Shahar" project for the ultra-orthodox population, in which ultra-orthodox young men served in IDF technological frameworks for a period of approximately two years and were trained to enter the civilian labor market. The Prime Minister, along with the Finance; Industry, Trade and Labor; Defense; and Science and Technology ministries, also decided to formulate a program to assist ultra-orthodox young men serving in the IDF and in civic service, in integrating into the labor market after their service.
Prime Minister Netanyahu noted that this was an unprecedented and important decision that would increase the number of ultra-orthodox young men in the military and in civic service, encourage their integration into the labor force and help create a more just sharing of the burden in society.
From 01 August 2012, with the expiration of The Tal Law, Minister of Defense Ehud Barak instructed the IDF to implement the 'Military Service Law' (consolidated version) of 1986. Minister Barak instructed the IDF to submit, within a month, a practical proposal to implement the 'Military Service Law' for the young ultra-orthodox population, until the Knesset authorizes a new law; permanently settling the issue.
The Minister stressed the policy initiative that he has proposed whereby the IDF's deliberations will take into account the Supreme Court ruling, the requirement and values of the IDF, and the principle of leveling the playing field/'sharing the burden'. The IDF will also examine, on a case-by-case basis, the suitability of individuals for military service, as is the convention.
Minister Barak also highlighted his order to accelerate the recruitment of the ultra-orthodox, through expanding and increasing the designated tracks for this community. In the long run, this will contribute to the vocational training and important integration of the ultra-orthodox community into Israel's labor market. With this, the minister instructed the army to 'deepen the means of enforcement' against those who shirk their responsibilities.
In parallel to this, the defense establishment would promote the reform of the payment scheme for soldiers of the IDF; with the emphasis on a scaled framework, whereby the highest level reaches the minimum wage. Minister Barak noted: "It is of the utmost importance that those who serve and bear the burden of our security are rewarded appropriately."
Israel's cabinet approved a draft law on 07 July 2013 to abolish wholesale exemptions from military duty granted to Jewish seminary students. Minister Yaakov Perry, chairman of the Ministerial Committee on Equality in Sharing the Burden in Military Service, Civilian Service and the Labor Force, submitted his committee's recommendations – in the form of two draft laws - for the approval of the Cabinet and the Ministerial Committee on Legislation. Minister Perry noted that his committee would, within two weeks, formulate a draft decision on completing the arrangements related to the outline on sharing the burden. Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon added that the outline would be implemented gradually and that targets would be set for its implementation in the framework of a draft Cabinet decision that is being formulated.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the following remarks: "Today, after 65 years, we are submitting for Cabinet approval the outline on increasing equality in sharing the burden. We will enact this change gradually while considering the special needs of the ultra-orthodox population. Our objective is two-fold: Integrating young ultra-orthodox into IDF and national service and, no less important, integrating them into the labor force."
The Israelis government agreed on 29 May 2013 to abolish wholesale exemptions from military service for Jewish seminary students. The issue of “sharing the national burden” was at the heart of a heated debate over privileges the ultra-Orthodox minority had enjoyed for decades. Netanyahu's main coalition partner, the centrist Yesh Atid party, which had campaigned in the January 2013 general election on a pledge to end military service exemptions for the community, threatened to quit the government unless the issue was resolved. Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, had balked at a clause under which criminal charges would be brought against those trying to dodge conscription. In a compromise, the government-appointed committee working to formulate a new conscription law agreed on sanctions, but delayed implementation for a four-year interim period, during which time the military would encourage 18-year-old Ultra-Orthodox Yeshiva students to enlist.
Under the proposed law, which still faced ratification by the cabinet and parliament, the number of seminary students exempted from the military each year would be limited to 1,800 of the estimated 8,000 required to register for the draft annually. Most Israeli men and women are called for military service for up to three years when they turn 18. However, exceptions had been made for most Arab citizens of Israel, as well as ultra-Orthodox men and women.
Due to haredi natural growth, within a decade or two, half of all 18-year-old boys could have opted out of mandatory military service under the 'Law for Yeshiva Students Deferring their Service', commonly known as 'The Tal Law'. The vast majority of ultra-orthodox rabbis wanted nothing to do with enlistment in the IDF, and the overall number of ultra-orthodox young men who opted for some form of IDF service under the law was tiny. Members of the secular majority continued to enlist, serve and sacrifice three years of their lives - and sometimes their lives - while the ultra-Orthodox continued to choose between total evasion of military service and preferential enlistment conditions.
This law authorized the practice in which the Minister of Defense routinely granted deferrals of and exemptions from required military service to ultra-Orthodox Jewish Yeshiva students who engaged in full-time religious study. Of those who enlisted in the IDF in 1987, 1,674 Yeshiva students had their military service deferred (constituting 5.4% of the total). The total number of students included in the arrangement for the deferral of military service in that year was 17,017. The number of Yeshiva students included in the deferral of service arrangement had risen constantly. About 8% of all the enlistees eligible for service were granted a deferral in 1997, based on their being full-time Yeshiva students. The total number of Yeshiva students included in the arrangement that year was 28,772.
Increasingly feelings of inequality were tearing the fabric of Israeli society. Moreover, some of the Yeshiva students being granted deferrals – namely, those who cannot successfully adjust to the full-time study of Torah – found themselves in an untenable predicament; they did not study, for they were unsuited for it; they did not work, for fear of exposing their failure to meet the conditions of the arrangement. The result was an ongoing breach of the law, inhibited personal growth and harm to the work force.
Israel decided 24 December 2018 to dissolve the Knesset, the legislative branch of the government, and called for early elections amid tensions over a bill to legislate military conscription for ultra-Orthodox men. The leaders of the coalition parties decided unanimously “to dissolve the Knesset and go to new elections at the beginning of April after a four-year term,” the statement from Netanyahu's ruling Likud party said. The national election had been scheduled for November 2019.
In September 2017, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the existing bill which exempted ultra-Orthodox Jews from being conscripted into the army was unlawful. In 2018 the government was granted several extensions for the complete annulment of the bill. The deadline is set for mid-January 2019. Netanyahu would need the support of 61 MKs to pass the controversial haredi enlistment bill that the Supreme Court said must be passed by 15 January 2019. Because the bill would not be passed by then, Netanyahu as defense minister would be breaking the law if he did not immediately enlist the haredi en masse, but he still could ignore the law.
The news about the dissolution of the Knesset and early elections came hours after Yesh Atid opposition party chairman Yair Lapid said that his party will vote against the bill. Netanyahu “has surrendered to the ultra-Orthodox because he is afraid of them,” Lapid told his party. The legislation was met with fierce opposition among ultra-Orthodox Jews who repeatedly staged protests and clashed with police. Some activists say that they would “rather die than be recruited”.
In the 09 April 2019 election, Likud gained five more seats compared with the 2015 elections, but needed 61 seats to form the government. By late May 2019 his coalition had only 60 members, one short of a majority in the 120-member Israeli parliament. Leader of the secularist party Avigdor Lieberman, sometimes a Netanyahu ally and sometimes a rival, said he would vote against a minority government. “A government of 60 is not a right-wing government, but an ultra-Orthodox government that, instead of preserving Israel as a Jewish state, will change it into a theocracy,” Liberman said. The former Defense Minister had not agreed on the right-wing coalition over the ultra-orthodox refusals to allow men to serve in the military. Lieberman demanded passage of a new law mandating that young ultra-Orthodox men be drafted into the Israeli military, like most other Jewish men, while Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox allies called for the current draft exemptions to remain in place.
The Israeli government headed by Netanyahu sought to pass a draft law that excludes the Haredim from military service and increases the period of compulsory service from 32 to 36 months, while also applying this to current conscripts. Minister in the Israeli government’s War Council, Benny Gantz, said that everyone should participate in military service in this “difficult time,” including the Haredim (religious Jews), in response to Rabbi Yosef’s statements. Gantz added that the words of the chief Sephardic rabbi “represent moral harm to the state and Israeli society,” as he put it. For his part, the head of the "Israel Our Home" party, Avigdor Lieberman, accused Rabbi Yitzhak of endangering Israel's security.
As for the Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, he said, “We believe in resolving the conscription issue through understanding, and serving in the army is a great privilege for the Jew who defends himself and his country.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant said that he would not allow the conscription law to be presented without obtaining the approval of all parties participating in the government coalition. In February 2024, the head of the Israeli opposition, Yair Lapid, called on the Ministers of the War Council, Gadi Eisenkot and Benny Gantz, to join him in opposing the draft draft law that exempts the Haredim from military service.
On 26 February 2024, the judges of the High Court of Justice issued a conditional order, in which the state was required to justify why it should not recruit the members of yeshiva after the expiration of the conscription law. The interim order also states that the service period of yeshiva students who will be conscripted will not be reduced, and the current situation will effectively be frozen. The conscription law expired in July, And the government passed a temporary decision stating that no enforcement measures will be taken until March 31st and a new recruitment law will be introduced. A new law was not introduced - and the High Court ruled that the state must respond to the orders by March 24th.
The ultra-Orthodox factions worked to formulate their own conscription law, after the interim order issued by the High Court of Justice regarding the conscription law. In the shadow of the fear that the yeshiva budget will be frozen at the end of March, the ultra-orthodox factions want to present a legal memorandum to the High Court, in an attempt to obtain a postponement. A senior member of the coalition said: "They are looking to postpone the end." But a senior member of the coalition said about the law promoted by the ultra-Orthodox: "The problem is that they don't really propose a phase change and want to mobilize. They are looking for a way to bypass the High Court of Justice - and postpone the end. It is not certain that this is a realistic goal".
The government coalition of Haredi parties strongly oppose the conscription law, namely the "Shas" movement headed by Rabbi Aryeh Deri , which includes "Sephardic" Jews of Eastern origins, and the "Torah Judaism" party headed by Moshe Gafni, which represents Ashkenazi Jews from Western and European origins. Netanyahu seeks to contain the situation, find solutions that prevent the disintegration of his government coalition, and preserve the historical alliance with the Haredi parties, which have been a mainstay in the coalition of Israeli governments for more than 3 decades. The decision not to recruit Haredi Jews is a political decision, and none of the parties participating in Netanyahu’s government, which relies on 64 members of the Knesset, wants to undermine the current coalition, as the war gave both sides a deadline in recruiting and sharing the burden, but the deadline had expired.
Political analyst on the “Zaman Yisrael” website, Amir Bar Shalom, believes that “Israel is facing one of the largest social crises ever, but the fault lines that will divide Israeli society this time will not be political, but rather moral.” The political analyst explained, “If a consensus solution is not reached regarding Haredi recruitment until the end of this month, the Netanyahu government will be obligated next April to submit the new compulsory service law and the reserve law, which includes extending regular military service and increasing the number of reserve days, which is “What has come to be called the heavy burden law.”
He pointed out that the aforementioned law will also be approved by those members of the government and the coalition of Haredi parties who do not bear the burden, noting that the law primarily targets tens of thousands of regular, secular soldiers, and the reserve force system that is still in a state of partial mobilization, saying, “ When the reserve forces recover from the horror of the war in Gaza, they will come out against extending reserve service and insist on recruiting Haredim.”
Israeli Minister of Security Yoav Gallant called 28 February 2024 to pass a law that would draft all segments of society, including ultra-Orthodox Jews, who are normally exempt from serving in the army. "Today, there is a real national need for the extension of the service time of the standing army soldiers, and in extending the service period of the reservists," Gallant said at a press conference. "The war has proved that everyone must go 'under the stretcher,'" he added.
Referring to a resolution on Ultra-orthodox (Haredis) conscription, he said: "We are required to make agreements and decisions, which we haven’t made in 75 years." As he called on members of the Knesset and the coalition to expedite a law on conscription, he said, "Our security challenges demonstrate that everyone must bear the burden of service. All parts of society," Gallant remarked, referring to the ultra-Orthodox community.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Gallant said that he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Benny Gantz, leaders of the ultra-Orthodox parties, and other coalition members, telling them that "it is possible and important to reach an agreed framework for a draft [law]."
"I call on the prime minister, to lead a joint course with all coalition factions, and reach the necessary agreements on the draft law. I hope there are also parts of the opposition that will join the framework that will be formulated," he said. "This is not a partisan issue. It is not a sectoral matter. This is a national-security matter of utmost importance," he added.
The minister addressed the members of the government and said: "The State of Israel is the state of the Jewish people. The Torah has protected the people throughout 2,000 years of exile. We cherish and appreciate those who dedicate their lives to the study of the Torah. However, without physical existence there is no spiritual existence. The security challenges facing us, proving that everyone must bear the burden - all sections of the people."
Gallant's proposal to draft ultra-Orthodox Israelis was welcomed by War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz, who also said that his National Unity party will collaborate with Gallant to advance legislation that would eliminate the general conscription exemptions that are currently granted to the Haredim. “All parts of Israeli society should take part in the right to serve. This is a security, national, and social need,” Gantz says after Gallant’s press conference.
In response to Gallant, opposition leader Yair Lapid states that his Yesh Atid party will present legislation for Haredi conscription the following week. The ultra-orthodox parties were outraged by the defense minister's statement in which he called for equality in the burden of service in the IDF: "It is full of slogans, this way we will not succeed in solving the crisis". A senior member of the party Torah Judaism said that "If Netanyahu wants to continue being prime minister in the summer, he will have to approve a conscription law."
Three weeks earlier, the Knesset passed a bill -- needing two more readings -- that would integrate more Ultra-Orthodox men in the military. A Haredi journalist, Yanki Farber, suggests that if the bill comes into effect, it will be met with anger and opposition. He said, "Every Orthodox mother is afraid that her child, who enrolls in the [IOF], will come out not as religious. It happened in my family too, when I decided to enlist and people were shocked at the sight of me wearing a uniform." He added "Forcing Haredis will not work, and if the [IOF] really wants these 50,000 boys, it will need to think how to integrate them into the service".
Confrontations between the Israeli occupation police force and Haredi Jews have been renewed in light of the latter's protests in refusal of the Israeli occupation's law of mandatory conscription with the IDF. Reporting on the matter, Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 said hundreds of Haredis had been protesting and blocking the roads in occupied al-Quds. Chants such as "We'd rather die than serve" were repeated, while Israeli media reported intense clashes between protestors and Israeli police. As a result, Israeli police attempted to forcefully disperse protests.
An outraged editorial in the Ya'ad Na'am newspaper, which is associated with the Torah flag, came out against the calls to recruit ultra-Orthodox. The article states that all the calls and claims in favor of ultra-Orthodox mobilization stem from demagoguery, and that "the talk about this is a lie". It is stated that the study of the Torah "holds the Jewish people together - we are not protected but defenders".
"Their talk of so-called equality in the burden is idle talk and a lie," the article continued. "Because if the secular public took upon itself, ostensibly, the role of preserving the Israeli people, the ultra-orthodox public took upon itself the role of preserving the Jewish people, which is the most important, the most existential role, to be or not to be. To the heart's content, in this matter there is no equality in the burden , because it is only the Torah learners who sustain the Jewish people. We are not the ones who are evading a three-thousand-year-old Jewish obligation, they are the ones who are evading!"
"They will not allow the recruits to continue the same way of life they came from, and this is exactly their intention: to create an Israeli melting pot with a hellishly high temperature! There will be those who say that they will establish special units, but this is lip service..."
Statements 09 March 2024 by the chief Sephardic rabbi in Israel regarding the rejection of military conscription in the occupation army sparked reactions within the government and the war council. The Chief Rabbi of the Sephardic Jews in Israel, Yitzhak Yosef, said that if the religious people were forced into military service, they would all travel abroad. Israeli Channel 12 quoted Youssef as saying, “If they force us to join the army, we will all travel outside the country, buy tickets and go,” referring to religious people. He added, denouncing, "There is no such thing. The secularists are putting the state at stake," and continued, "They must understand this, all the secularists who do not understand this matter."
Israel has two chief rabbis, one representing the Sephardic sect (Easterners) and the other representing the Ashkenazi sect (Westerners). They are called the two chief rabbis, and each of them holds office for 10 years, in elections in which 150 people, including rabbis, mayors, local councils, ministers, and members of the Knesset, participate. The Sephardic rabbi is usually from the religious "Shas" party, while the Ashkenazi rabbi is from the United Torah Judaism party alliance , and both parties are within Benjamin Netanyahu's current government.
Anshel Pfeffer suggested "Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef's empty threat that yeshiva students will leave Israel rather than serve in the army exemplifies Haredi arrogance towards wartime Israel ... He's an old grouch with very limited horizons who didn't make much of himself in the rabbinical world ... he perfectly encapsulated the Haredi arrogance and obtuseness toward the needs and feelings of an entire society in wartime, their detachment from reality and their warping of the value of Torah study. For weeks now, ultra-Orthodox politicians have refrained from giving interviews. They at least know there is no way they can explain in the general Israeli media their absolute refusal to countenance the drafting of young Haredim to the Israel Defense Forces. ... that there is nothing that shrinks Netanyahu's room for maneuver more than the rabbi's admonishment that "they have to understand this, all those secular Jews who don't understand. They have to understand that without the Torah, without the yeshivas, there would be no existence, there would be no success for the army."
Israeli writer Nehemia Strassler published an article in the newspaper "Haaretz" 13 March 2023 about what he said was the "real reason", according to his point of view, for the reluctance of Haredi (Eastern) Jews to conscript their children into the Israeli army. He said that secular Israelis must realize that the ultra-Orthodox do not respect them and teach their children to despise them. They do not recognize the state, and are anti-Zionist. To them, “we are simply a financial reserve that must be stolen.”
He added that the Haredim view the secular government as a foreign government that must be exploited, deceived, lied to, and extorted as much money as possible from it. They see the state not as the beginning of “salvation,” but as a direct continuation of biblical exile. Strassler goes on to say that for the Haredim, the government was like the non-Jewish landowner that the Jews in Eastern Europe had to work with and had to live with, which is why they had no problem not fulfilling any civic duty: teaching the basic curriculum, working, and serving in the army.
When asked, in private conversations, to answer the question: Why don't they serve in the army?, they are surprised and answer with another question: "Why should we be drafted to fight in the wars you are waging? You want to fight, you can serve. We are not willing to sacrifice our children, for the sake of your country."
The writer explains that over the years, the Haredim have come up with all kinds of reasons to avoid compulsory conscription, saying: This time, the Haredi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef stood out with what the writer described as his “empty talk,” as he says: “Without the Torah, without religious schools for married men, there will be nothing. There will be no success for the army. The army only succeeds thanks to those who study the Torah. The Torah is what protects us."
There is also another funny argument for the draft evasion project, the writer adds, as Rabbi Yosef says: The Haredim are “Levites”, descended from the Levite tribes, and are exempt from military service. The writer comments that Joseph seems to have knowledge of research on lineage and race, and in fact it seems that the Haredim are descended from the tribes of Gad and Reuven, in which the Prophet of God Moses said: “Do your brothers go to war, and you sit here?”, which indicates that there has always been Conscription evaders.
The writer continues to reveal the real reason for the Haredim abstaining from military service, saying that we can learn about the Haredi position towards Israeli soldiers from the statements of two prominent leaders in the Orthodox movement, one of whom is Rabbi Dov Landau, who advises religious school students not to attend military funerals or even make hospital visits. To wounded soldiers, he says “Let them die in peace, what does it matter?” The other is Rabbi Yisrael Bunim Schreiber, who says that IDF soldiers are like “garbage men,” and “we don’t care who they killed, they have no connection to us, they are not our brothers.”
The writer goes back to saying that it is time to realize that the real reason for the Haredim’s evasion is the clear and direct desire to protect the lives of their children. Even Haredi legislators are elected according to their commitment to the teachings of the sect. The writer called for the secular response to the Haredim to be no less severe and clear: compulsory conscription for all Haredim, at the age of 18, without exemptions, without tricks and without inventions such as “alternative civil service.”
But he returned to say that the secularists would not respond as he called, because as long as Benjamin Netanyahu was prime minister, that would not happen. Netanyahu will allow the Haredim to remain in their safe cities, without work, without conscription, and receiving billions from the state. All on one condition: that they remain loyal to the ruling coalition. After all, staying in power is the only thing that “the most despicable man in the history of the Jewish people” cares about, he said.
He concluded by saying that he had one good thing to say about Rabbi Yosef: 22 years ago, Sara Netanyahu, the prime minister’s wife, said that unless her husband remained prime minister, “we will move abroad, and the whole country could burn,” adding that Yosef had only threatened to move. abroad, and he has not yet set the Israelis on fire, as Netanyahu did.
Moshe Roth, a member of parliament from the religious United Torah Judaism party, says, "The army can deal with its manpower needs without recruiting religious school students." Roth acknowledges that there is “a chance for a compromise,” under which “the most dedicated students will continue their studies, while others are conscripted, as long as the army ensures they maintain the ultra-Orthodox way of life.” He believes that politically, there will be some kind of settlement, where the government will ask the court for an extension of time, or “form a committee of some kind.”
The Israeli Kan public broadcaster reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu notified ministers in his Likud party that he won't give up on the controversial Haredi draft law, as without it there would be no "government". Israeli Security Minister Yoav Gallant expressed criticism toward his coalition members for their reluctance to display "flexibility" concerning the matter of granting blanket exemptions from the IOF to the ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jews, as the deadline for introducing new legislation approaches.
“This coming Tuesday, a proposal for a decision on the recruitment issue will be brought to the government by the prime minister, on his initiative,” he stressed. “My position has not changed. I will not be a party to any proposal that isn’t agreed upon by all coalition factions — and under my leadership, the security system will not submit it for legislation.” This comes as Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid states that war cabinet minister Benny Gantz should pull his National Unity party out of the occupation government if the Haredi draft law is passed this week. “If the conscription law passes on Tuesday, Gantz and [minister Gadi] Eisenkot should leave the government,” he told the Israeli Kan.
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