Israelis are preparing for potential unrest after the army issued draft notices to 1,000 chareidi men this week. This court-ordered action represents the most significant challenge yet to the long-standing exemption of chareidi yeshiva students from military service.
However, in chareidi communities, the young men who received the draft notices show no signs of worry.
Some young men might consider enlisting if the army provided “chareidi-appropriate” frameworks, reflecting a recent Smith Consulting poll presented to the Knesset State Control Committee. In the poll, 59 percent of respondents indicated that tracks allowing them to maintain their lifestyle would positively impact overall enlistment numbers.
The resistant yet calm attitude of youths mirrors the broader response of Israel’s chareidi minority, which makes up about 13% of the population, to the current push for universal conscription. Gedolei Torah have publicly instructed recruits to ignore the draft orders but have so far refrained from organizing the large-scale protests seen in previous rounds.
The timing and context of ongoing military conflicts on multiple fronts may contribute to a relatively subdued reaction from the chareidim, who remain confident in their ability to avoid mass conscription as long as their political parties are part of the coalition.
Many chareidim may also prefer to avoid mobilizing amidst growing resentment from non-chareidim over an unequal military obligation.
Only a few thousand chareidim have staged protests, raising some concerns about potential wartime friction with authorities.
“The fringe, which is not under the control of the mainstream rabbis, is making noise but they’re the exception to the rule,” said Avishai Ben Chaim, a journalist for Channel 13 who reports extensively on chareidi society. “Instead of fighting the waves, chareidi leaders prefer to swim under them,” he added.
Ben Chaim pointed out that the current government is one of the most chareidi-friendly in decades and is not responsible for the draft orders. The High Court of Justice mandated the army to start enlisting chareidim in a significant June 25 ruling that effectively ended the exemption, at least judicially.
“Chareidi representatives are in government and would gladly help to circumvent the High Court ruling if they could. So there’s no point in demonstrating. They’re just keeping a low profile,” said Ben Chaim.
Several thousand chareidim held an unlicensed protest rally on June 30 in Yerushalayim, which the police dispersed with a water cannon. Last week, dozens of chareidim attacked two senior IDF officers in Bnei Brak during meetings about the draft with top rabbonim. The officers were not injured.
These events were relatively minor compared to mobilizations such as the mass chareidi demonstration of 2014. That protest was triggered by a bill proposing to drastically reduce exemptions and introduce sanctions for noncompliance, resulting in hundreds of thousands of chareidim gathering.
At that time, chareidi parties were in the opposition. The bill passed but was later amended, and the High Court nullified the amended law in 2017, citing inequality. The June 25 ruling was the latest judicial intervention against the chareidi exemption.
The ongoing struggle over the draft issue has convinced many chareidim of the impracticality of any plan to draft the approximately 60,000 yeshiva students who were exempt before June 25 under agreements dating back to Israel’s founding.
“It’ll come down to money; a deal will be worked out,” said Azriel, a 28-year-old father of three from Haifa and a full-time kollel fellow in Vizhnitz. At one of the many small kehillos in his chareidi neighborhood of Haifa, he envisioned an arrangement where chareidim give up some state funding to keep the exemption.
But yeshivas are already struggling financially, he admitted.
The state currently funds yeshivas to the tune of NIS 1.7 billion ($477 million) annually. However, this funding faces a 30% cut because it’s partially allocated on a per-student basis. The court’s June 25 ruling also ordered the state to stop funding students who used to be exempt.
“The money will come; don’t worry,” said Azriel.
“Not enlisting is a matter of life or death for us,” Azriel said. “That’s why they won’t forcibly conscript because we’d rather die.”
To Azriel and many other chareidim, “the draft is an attempt to secularize us.” Manpower shortages, he said, “are just the excuse. Our society has evolved to resist secularization. It’s the fiber of our being.”
The IDF has units designed to accommodate the needs of chareidi troops, such as Netzach Yehuda, and plans to create new and better ones, according to the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit.
However, following the June 25 ruling, several prominent gedolim, including Maran Rav Dov Landau, have urged chareidim who receive draft notices to ignore them.
Meanwhile, in non-chareidi society, the exemption issue is actually a secondary concern in the ongoing protests against Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s government, which many blame for failing to prevent the October 7 Hamas attack.
{Matzav.com Israel}