🔗 Share this article

A gathering crisis over drafting ultra-Orthodox Jews into the military is threatening to undermine the administration and fracturing the state.

The public mood on the matter has shifted dramatically in Israel in the wake of two years of conflict, and this is now arguably the most volatile political issue facing the Prime Minister.

The Constitutional Conflict

Legislators are reviewing a piece of legislation to end the deferment granted to Haredi students enrolled in yeshiva learning, created when the the nation was declared in 1948.

That exemption was declared unconstitutional by Israel's High Court of Justice two decades ago. Stopgap solutions to maintain it were formally ended by the bench last year, forcing the government to start enlisting the ultra-Orthodox population.

Approximately 24,000 call-up papers were issued last year, but only around 1,200 ultra-Orthodox - or Haredi - draftees enlisted, according to army data shared with lawmakers.

Friction Spill Into Violence

Tensions are erupting onto the streets, with parliamentarians now discussing a new legislative proposal to require Haredi males into national service alongside other secular Israelis.

Two Haredi politicians were harassed this month by some extreme ultra-Orthodox protesters, who are incensed with the Knesset's deliberations of the draft legislation.

And last week, a elite police squad had to extract enforcement personnel who were surrounded by a big group of Haredi men as they attempted to detain a alleged conscription dodger.

These arrests have prompted the establishment of a new messaging system called "Emergency Alert" to rapidly disseminate information through Haredi neighborhoods and mobilize activists to block enforcement from occurring.

"We're a Jewish country," said one protester. "It's impossible to battle the Jewish faith in a nation founded on Jewish identity. That is untenable."

A Realm Apart

But the changes sweeping across Israel have failed to penetrate the walls of the Kisse Rahamim yeshiva in Bnei Brak, an Haredi enclave on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

In the learning space, young students learn in partnerships to debate Judaism's religious laws, their brightly coloured school notebooks popping against the rows of white shirts and small black kippahs.

"Come at one in the morning, and you will see half the guys are engaged in learning," the dean of the academy, Rabbi Tzemach Mazuz, explained. "Through religious study, we protect the soldiers wherever they are. This is how we contribute."

Haredi Jews maintain that continuous prayer and spiritual pursuit protect Israel's armed forces, and are as essential to its security as its conventional forces. This conviction was acknowledged by Israel's politicians in the past, he said, but he acknowledged that the nation is evolving.

Growing Popular Demand

This religious sector has significantly increased its percentage of the country's people over the since the state's founding, and now accounts for 14%. An exemption that started as an exemption for a small number of Torah scholars evolved into, by the beginning of the Gaza war, a body of tens of thousands of men exempt from the draft.

Polling data suggest approval of ultra-Orthodox conscription is growing. A poll in July revealed that 85% of secular and traditional Jews - including a large segment in his own coalition allies - supported sanctions for those who refused a call-up notice, with a firm majority in supporting removing privileges, travel documents, or the electoral participation.

"It seems to me there are citizens who are part of this nation without contributing," one military member in Tel Aviv commented.

"I don't think, however religious you are, [it] should be an justification not to fulfill your duty to your country," stated a Tel Aviv resident. "Being a native, I find it rather absurd that you want to opt out just to engage in religious study all day."

Voices from the Heart of Bnei Brak

Advocacy of ending the exemption is also found among traditional Jews beyond the Haredi community, like one local resident, who lives near the yeshiva and notes non-Haredi religious Jews who do serve in the military while also engaging in religious study.

"It makes me angry that the Haredim don't enlist," she said. "It's unfair. I also believe in the Torah, but there's a teaching in Hebrew - 'The Book and the Sword' – it represents the scripture and the weapons together. This is the correct approach, until the messianic era."

She runs a local tribute in her city to local soldiers, both religious and secular, who were fallen in war. Long columns of faces {