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The Times of Israel

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Topic: Yohanan Plesner

April 14, 2013
3:02 pm

Israel's universal draft is one factor behind the low peacefulness rating. Here, soldiers are being sworn in to a religious IDF unit. (photo credit: Photo by Noam Moskowitz/Flash90)

New committee convenes to tackle universal draft

Former Shin Bet head Yaakov Peri chairs group tasked with integrating ultra-Orthodox and Arabs into IDF and national service

By Asher Zeiger

January 24, 2013
10:44 pm

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu listens to Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef at the bar mitzvah of party chairman Eli Yishai's son, in February 2011. (photo credit: Ilia Yefimovich/Flash90)

Final results could make it easier for PM to form right-center coalition

Kadima’s two seats and Jewish Home’s 12th seat mean Netanyahu less reliant on ultra-Orthodox parties

By Times of Israel staff

January 24, 2013
4:26 pm

Judge Elyakim Rubinstein, head of the Central Election Committee, tallying votes in Jerusalem on Tuesday. (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Final vote tally gives Kadima reprieve, Jewish Home a 12th seat

Arab party Ra’am-Ta’al drops to four seats as last ballots counted, shifting balance of blocs 61-59 in favor of right wing

By Joshua Davidovich

January 23, 2013
11:42 pm

Kadima chairman Shaul Mofaz and his wife arrive at a polling station in Kohav Yair to cast their votes on Tuesday, January 22 (photo credit: Flash90)

Kadima wins reprieve, Jewish Home takes 12th spot as vote count ends

United Arab List expected to drop to four seats as last election slips from soldiers, prisoners, hospital patients and diplomats tallied

By Joshua Davidovich

January 23, 2013
5:16 pm

Knesset members stand during a ceremony marking 17 years since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, on October 28, 2012. (photo credit: Yoav Ari Dudkevitch/Flash90)

In the next Knesset, a radical case of musical chairs

It’s out with the old — more than 50 of them — and in with the new

By Gabe Fisher

January 7, 2013
12:22 pm

Shas mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

Shas spiritual leader calls on Haredim to emigrate rather than join army

‘We are surrounded by haters,’ says former chief rabbi Ovadia Yosef, referring to those who want to draft yeshiva students

By Asher Zeiger

January 3, 2013
6:38 pm

Ultra-Orthodox men in Jerusalem protest intention to draft them in July 2012 (photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

3,000 ultra-Orthodox receive IDF draft notices, to be called up by August

Head of manpower in the army says 2013 the first year in which Haredi draftees number in the thousands

By Asher Zeiger

December 9, 2012
11:53 pm

Yesh Atid chair Yair Lapid at his party's convention, December 2012 (photo credit: Yehoshua Yosef/Flash90)

Lapid says he’ll go to court to stop ultra-Orthodox draft exemptions

Yesh Atid head calls move to allow 1,300 Haredi men to serve national service a ‘scandal’

By Philip Podolsky and Asher Zeiger

December 9, 2012
11:46 am

Ultra-Orthodox men receiving information at their civil service orientation in Jerusalem in July 2012. (photo credit: Uri Lenz/Flash 90)

Cabinet approves draft of 1,300 ultra-Orthodox into civil service

Critics slam ‘expedient’ solution to thorny issue of Haredim in the military

By Asher Zeiger

December 5, 2012
7:35 pm

Kadima faction chair Dalia Itzik speaking to media in July 2012 (photo credit: Noam Moskowitz/Flash90)

MKs Itzik and Bar-On quit politics as their collapsing Kadima party trots out lackluster Knesset list

Resignations follow mass exodus of top guns from outgoing parliament’s biggest faction to Tzipi Livni’s new Hatnua

By Adiv Sterman

November 27, 2012
11:40 am

Tzipi Livni announces her new political party, The Movement, in a Tel Aviv press conference, Tuesday (photo credit: Flash90)

Tzipi Livni launches new party, ‘The Movement’; promises to fight for ‘democratic Israel’

‘Everything is upside down,’ former Kadima leader says as she pledges to push for two-state solution, ultra-Orthodox conscription, and the opportunity for young people to ‘live with dignity’

By Michal Shmulovich

November 13, 2012
11:46 am

US-born Rabbi Dov Lipman, right, and Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid (photo credit: Yaakov Lederman)

Anglos left, right and center

He has a ‘very American’ attitude, says one veteran politician of US-born Jeremy Gimpel, ‘in the sense that he sees the candidate as a representative of the voters.’ Now there’s a radical thought! Would-be MKs like Gimpel, Eytan Schwartz and Dov Lipman might just bring a refreshing new approach to the next Knesset

By Raphael Ahren

October 15, 2012
5:33 pm

Defense Minister Ehud Barak sparring with the members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday (photo credit: Miriam Alster/ Flash90)

Barak: Army preparing in theory to draft ultra-Orthodox 18-year-olds in 2013

For now, defense minister clarifies, conscription in the haredi community will not be forcibly imposed

By Mitch Ginsburg

September 8, 2012
7:32 am

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) former deputy chief of staff and national security adviser Uzi Dayan (center) and Defense Minister Ehud Barak (AP/Oded Balilty)

Former commandos dominate Israeli politics

Avi Dichter’s ministerial appointment underlines the centrality of veterans of Netanyahu’s old military unit, the elite Sayeret Matkal

By Aron Heller

August 20, 2012
11:01 am

Yohanan Plesner in conversation with Shas Party head Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who served in the army but boycotted the Plesner Committee (photo credit: Miriam Alster/ Flash 90)

My proposal is the only realistic basis, says the MK who tried to solve Israel’s ultra-Orthodox conscription crisis

The August 1 deadline has come and gone. His Kadima party now sits powerless in opposition. But Yohanan Plesner is convinced his legislative proposal for equal national service, buried by the prime minister, has life in it yet

By Mitch Ginsburg

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