🔗 Share this article

A gathering crisis over conscripting Haredi men into the Israel Defense Forces is posing a risk to Israel's government and splitting the country.

Popular sentiment on the question has undergone a sea change in Israel after two years of conflict, and this is now perhaps the most volatile political challenge facing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Legal Battle

Lawmakers are currently considering a draft bill to end the exemption granted to Haredi students dedicated to yeshiva learning, established when the State of Israel was established in 1948.

This arrangement was struck down by the Supreme Court almost 20 years ago. Stopgap solutions to continue it were formally ended by the bench last year, compelling the administration to commence conscription of the ultra-Orthodox population.

Some 24,000 call-up papers were delivered last year, but merely about 1,200 ultra-Orthodox - or Haredi - draftees showed up, according to defense officials shared with lawmakers.

Tensions Erupt Into Violence

Strains are boiling over onto the public squares, with parliamentarians now deliberating a new draft bill to require Haredi males into national service in the same way as other Israeli Jews.

Two Haredi politicians were harassed this month by hardline activists, who are furious with the legislative debate of the proposed law.

Recently, a elite police squad had to extract army police who were targeted by a sizeable mob of ultra-Orthodox protesters as they sought to apprehend a suspected draft-evader.

Such incidents have prompted the establishment of a new alert system called "Dark Alert" to send out instant alerts through Haredi neighborhoods and mobilize activists to stop detentions from taking place.

"Israel is a Jewish nation," remarked one protester. "It's impossible to battle Judaism in a nation founded on Jewish identity. It doesn't work."

A Realm Set Aside

However the changes sweeping across Israel have failed to penetrate the environment of the religious seminary in a Haredi stronghold, an Haredi enclave on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

In the learning space, teenage boys learn in partnerships to analyze Judaism's religious laws, their distinctive notepads standing out against the lines of formal attire and traditional skullcaps.

"Visit in the early hours, and you will see many of the students are pursuing religious study," the dean of the yeshiva, a senior rabbi, explained. "By studying Torah, we shield the troops in the field. This is our army."

The community holds that constant study and religious study guard Israel's armed forces, and are as essential to its defense as its conventional forces. This conviction was endorsed by Israel's politicians in the earlier decades, the rabbi said, but he acknowledged that Israel was changing.

Rising Societal Anger

The Haredi community has more than doubled its share of Israel's population over the past seven decades, and now accounts for 14%. A policy that originated as an exception for a few hundred yeshiva attendees evolved into, by the onset of the 2023 war, a group of tens of thousands of men not subject to the national service.

Opinion polls show approval of ending the exemption is increasing. Research in July showed that a large majority of the broader Jewish public - including almost three-quarters in Netanyahu's own right-wing Likud party - supported consequences for those who refused a draft order, with a firm majority in favor of withdrawing benefits, passports, or the right to vote.

"I feel there are individuals who are part of this country without giving anything back," 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 nation," stated a Tel Aviv resident. "Being a native, I find it somewhat unreasonable that you want to opt out just to engage in religious study all day."

Perspectives from Inside Bnei Brak

Support for broadening conscription is also found among religious Jews outside the Haredi community, like a Bnei Brak inhabitant, who is a neighbor of the seminary and highlights religious Zionists who do perform national service while also maintaining their faith.

"I am frustrated that this community don't serve in the army," she said. "It's unfair. I too follow the Jewish law, but there's a proverb in Jewish tradition - 'Safra and Saifa' – it means the scripture and the defense together. That's the way forward, until the messianic era."

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