🔗 Share this article

A gathering crisis over enlisting ultra-Orthodox Jews into the Israel Defense Forces is posing a risk to Israel's government and dividing the nation.

The public mood on the issue has changed profoundly in Israel following two years of war, and this is now possibly the most explosive political challenge facing Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Constitutional Battle

Legislators are now debating a proposal to terminate the special status awarded to yeshiva scholars engaged in full-time religious study, created when the the nation was declared in 1948.

That exemption was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the early 2000s. Interim measures to extend it were formally ended by the court last year, compelling the administration to start enlisting the community.

Some 24,000 enlistment orders were issued last year, but just approximately 1,200 Haredi conscripts enlisted, according to army data presented to lawmakers.

Tensions Spill Into Violence

Friction is spilling onto the city centers, with parliamentarians now discussing a new conscription law to force Haredi males into national service together with other Jewish citizens.

A pair of ultra-Orthodox lawmakers were confronted this month by hardline activists, who are incensed with the Knesset's deliberations of the bill.

And last week, a elite police squad had to rescue army police who were attacked by a large crowd of community members as they attempted to detain a man avoiding service.

Such incidents have prompted the establishment of a new communication network called "Emergency Alert" to spread word quickly through the religious sector and mobilize protesters to stop detentions from occurring.

"We're a Jewish country," said one protester. "You can't fight against the Jewish faith in a Jewish country. It doesn't work."

An Environment Apart

Yet the transformations blowing through Israel have failed to penetrate the confines of the Kisse Rahamim yeshiva in a Haredi stronghold, an religious community on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

In the learning space, young students sit in pairs to debate Jewish law, their vividly colored writing books popping against the seats of light-colored shirts and head coverings.

"Visit in the early hours, and you will see many of the students are studying Torah," the leader of the academy, a senior rabbi, said. "Through religious study, we protect the troops on the front lines. This constitutes our service."

Ultra-Orthodox believe that continuous prayer and spiritual pursuit defend Israel's armed forces, and are as vital to its security as its tanks and air force. This conviction was endorsed by the nation's leaders in the past, he said, but he acknowledged that public attitudes are shifting.

Increasing Societal Anger

The ultra-Orthodox population has more than doubled its proportion of the nation's citizens over the past seven decades, and now accounts for around one in seven. An exemption that started as an exemption for several hundred yeshiva attendees evolved into, by the beginning of the 2023 war, a cohort of some 60,000 men left out of the national service.

Polling data suggest backing for ultra-Orthodox conscription is rising. A poll in July found that an overwhelming percentage of secular and traditional Jews - encompassing a large segment in his own coalition allies - supported sanctions for those who refused a enlistment summons, with a solid consensus in supporting cutting state subsidies, the right to travel, or the electoral participation.

"I feel there are people who are part of this country without contributing," one military member in Tel Aviv commented.

"It is my belief, regardless of piety, [it] should be an reason not to go and serve your nation," added a Tel Aviv resident. "Being a native, I find it somewhat unreasonable that you want to avoid service just to engage in religious study all day."

Views from the Heart of Bnei Brak

Advocacy of ending the exemption is also coming from religious Jews beyond the ultra-Orthodox sector, like one local resident, who resides close to the academy and points to non-Haredi religious Jews who do serve in the military while also studying Torah.

"I'm very angry that ultra-Orthodox people don't enlist," she said. "It is unjust. I also believe in the Torah, but there's a teaching in Jewish tradition - 'Safra and Saifa' – it represents the Torah and the guns together. This is the correct approach, until the days of peace."

The resident manages a modest remembrance site in her city to local soldiers, both observant and non-observant, who were fallen in war. Lines of faces {