8 arrested as ultra-Orthodox clash with cops over army draft
Hundreds attend rallies in Jerusalem, Beit Shemesh after arrest of draft-dodging student; demonstrators throw rocks, burn garbage
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Eight ultra-Orthodox protesters were arrested on Thursday night as demonstrations over the jailing of a yeshiva student who failed to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces took a violent turn, police said.
Hundreds of demonstrators torched dumpsters and threw rocks at police officers at protests in Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh, according to police. Seven were detained in the capital and one in Beit Shemesh.
One police officer was lightly injured in the scuffles, police said.
Police were heavily deployed at both rallies.
The protests centered on the arrest of a yeshiva student who did not show up to an IDF induction center to enlist.
Many in the Haredi community shun the mandatory national service that applies to most Israelis, and the community has historically enjoyed blanket exemptions from the army in favor of religious seminary studies.
Police have sporadically detained ultra-Orthodox draft-dodgers in the past year.
In July, five Haredi demonstrators protesting the IDF draft outside a Jaffa courthouse were arrested. At the end of the mostly peaceful protest, some of the demonstrators attacked policemen, overturned garbage cans, blocked traffic, hurled eggs and stones at cops, and flipped over two motorcycles, damaging them, police said at the time. There were no reports of injuries.
In February, ultra-Orthodox men in the coastal city of Ashdod clashed with police, thwarting the arrest of a Haredi draft dodger. A month earlier, Jerusalem police arrested six ultra-Orthodox men demonstrating in the capital. That demonstration was centered on the arrests of two ultra-Orthodox men who failed to show up at the army induction center to enlist, the police said.
Reforms passed in the Knesset in 2014 that sought to do away with the exemptions and gradually increase ultra-Orthodox recruitment met fierce opposition from many in the community.
In late November, the Knesset approved an amendment to the Equal Service Law, dramatically rolling back 2014 reforms and scrapping collective penalties to be imposed if annual quotas for ultra-Orthodox draftees were not met.
The Times of Israel Community.