Crisis looms in Israel over ultra-Orthodox conscription bill

An impending crisis over conscripting ultra-Orthodox Jews into the Israeli army is threatening to undermine Israel's government and split the country.

Public opinion on the issue has shifted dramatically in Israel after two years of war, and this is now perhaps the most explosive political risk facing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Lawmakers are currently considering a draft bill to end the exemption granted to ultra-Orthodox men enrolled in full-time religious study, established when the State of Israel was declared in 1948.

That exemption was ruled illegal by Israel's High Court of Justice almost 20 years ago. Temporary arrangements to continue it were formally ended by the court last year, forcing the government to begin drafting the community.

Some 24,000 draft notices were issued last year, but only around 1,200 ultra-Orthodox - or Haredi - draftees reported for duty, according to military testimony given to lawmakers.

Tensions are erupting onto the streets, with lawmakers now debating a new draft bill to force ultra-Orthodox men into military service alongside other Israeli Jews.

Two Haredi politicians were targeted this month by some extreme ultra-Orthodox protesters, who are furious with parliament's discussion of the proposed law.

And last week, a special Border Police unit had to rescue Military Police officers who were targeted by a large crowd of Haredi men as they tried to arrest a suspected draft-evader.

These arrests have sparked the creation of a new messaging system called "Black Alert" to spread word quickly through ultra-Orthodox communities and summon protesters to prevent arrests taking place.

The push to conscript more ultra-Orthodox also triggered a vast protest by tens of thousands of Haredi men in Jerusalem last month - with the issue seen by many as part of a wider conflict around the identity of the Jewish state, and the place of religion within it.

"We're a Jewish country," said Shmuel Orbach, one of the protesters. "You can't fight against Judaism in a Jewish country. It doesn't work."

But the changes blowing through Israel have not yet breached the walls of the Kisse Rahamim yeshiva - or Jewish seminary - in Bnei Brak, an ultra-Orthodox city on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

Inside the classroom, teenage boys sit in pairs to discuss Judaism's religious laws, their brightly coloured school notebooks popping against the rows of white shirts and small black kippahs (traditional skullcaps).

"Come at one in the morning, and you will see half the guys are studying Torah," the head of the yeshiva, Rabbi Tzemach Mazuz, told me, in what his office said was his first interview with foreign media, or with any female journalist. "By studying Torah, we protect the soldiers wherever they are. This is our army."

Ultra-Orthodox believe continuous prayer and religious study protect Israel's soldiers, and are as crucial to its military success as its tanks and air force. That belief was accepted by Israel's politicians in the past, Rabbi Mazuz said, but he acknowledged that Israel was changing.

"Today, many in the government and the Knesset [parliament] have distanced themselves from religion. They say yeshiva students are lazy, which is not true," he said. "In Tel Aviv, there are tens of thousands of draft-dodgers - why don't they take them? Why are they attacking yeshiva students?"

Despite attacks from the right, Tel Aviv was a top contributor of soldiers during the war. And the pressure felt by Israeli conscripts and reservists over the past two years has thrown a spotlight on those who do not serve.

The ultra-Orthodox population has more than doubled its share of Israel's population over the past seven decades, and now accounts for 14%. What began as an exemption for several hundred religious students became, by the start of the Gaza war, a cohort of some 60,000 men left out of the draft.

Opinion polls suggest support for ultra-Orthodox conscription is rising. A survey in July by the Israel Democracy Institute think tank found that 85% of non-Haredi Jews - including almost three-quarters in Netanyahu's own right-wing Likud party - supported sanctions for those who refused a draft order, with a firm majority in favour of withdrawing benefits, passports, or the right to vote.

"It makes me feel there are people who live in this country without giving anything back," one off-duty soldier in Tel Aviv explained.

"I don't think, however religious you are, [it] should be an excuse not to go and serve your country," said Gabby, a young woman also in Tel Aviv. "If you're born here, I find it quite ridiculous that you want to exempt yourself just to study Torah all day."

Support for extending the draft is also coming from religious Jews outside the Haredi community, like Dorit Barak, who lives near the yeshiva in Bnei Brak 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 serve in the army," she said. "It's unfair. I also believe in the Torah, but there's a saying in Hebrew - "Safra and Saifa" [The Book and the Sword] – it means the Torah and the guns together. That's the way forward, until the days of peace."

Ms Barak runs a small memorial in Bnei Brak to local soldiers, both religious and secular, who were killed in battle during Israel's wars. Long columns of faces peer out from the black and white photographs lining the back wall.

The last soldier from the neighbourhood died in 1983 - a sign, she says, of Israel's shifting demographics.

"It's completely changed," she said. "When I was a child, almost half the residents here were not religious, and a small percentage were ultra-Orthodox. Today, almost everyone is ultra-Orthodox, and since 1983 no soldiers were killed, because no one is serving in the army."

There are special army and police units for the small number of ultra-Orthodox men who currently choose to serve. But Benjamin Netanyahu said at the opening of parliament's winter session in October that the new draft bill would see 10,000 yeshiva students drafted within two years - something he described as "a real revolution".

Ultra-Orthodox parties are crucial allies in Netanyahu's governing coalition, and also in his bid for political survival while standing trial on corruption charges, which he denies. A key demand in return for their loyalty is continued exemption for their supporters from the military draft.

The issue has twice brought down Netanyahu's governments in the past.

The draft bill now going through parliament is an attempt to find a way through the issue, or at least to buy time ahead of elections due next year.

"A balanced law, a good law, a law that is good for the army, good for the yeshiva students, good for the people of Israel [and] good for the state," said lawmaker Boaz Bismuth, a Netanyahu loyalist charged with shepherding the bill through parliament.

But many lawmakers, including those from the governing coalition, said this week the current draft of the bill was far too lenient, and that neither they nor the courts would approve it.

The current text appears to largely maintain the status quo by conscripting only those ultra-Orthodox men not in full-time religious study, and lifting all sanctions on draft-dodgers once they turn 26.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid, who heads the centrist Yesh Atid party, called the draft text a "disgrace" and a "betrayal", and vowed it would not pass.

Even some within Netanyahu's own Likud party have refused to support it.

Tzachi Hanegbi, a former National Security Adviser recently dismissed by Netanyahu, described it as "an instrument of evasion [that] endangers the future of the state", adding that he and his four sons had all served significant time in the military.

Israel's ultra-Orthodox parties have been split over whether to concede to the growing pressure for change, but in a move seen as evidence of the bill's leniency, the hardline Degel HaTorah party - part of the governing coalition - is reportedly considering supporting the current text.

Asked whether it was better to back this version of the bill, or risk toppling Benjamin Netanyahu completely, Rabbi Mazuz avoided giving a concrete answer.

"The world is guided by God," he said. "When [US President Donald] Trump didn't win a second term [in 2020], I and many millions were hurt. Why did God do this?"

"But He knew the future, and He knew the Hamas plan. God wanted Trump [in power] during this period," he added, referring to the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which triggered the Gaza war.

Rabbi Mazuz gestured to the religious manuscripts lining his office - hundreds of years old, he said.

"Between us, Israeli prisons are not like the ones in Russia, thank God. We will get through this too. But I hope we don't get to that."

The Haredi way of life has changed little in centuries, but they and their political allies are now locked in a debate over what it means to be Jewish and Israeli, and whether that means fighting for Israel, or fighting for their way of life against the modern demands of war.

Additional reporting by Oren Rosenfeld and Samantha Granville