Deri dismisses issue of ultra-Orthodox draft evasion, saying IDF ‘knows how to cope’

Shas party chairman Aryeh Deri on Thursday dismissed the suggestion that he should call on army-age Haredi men who are not studying Torah to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces, in accordance with the law.

“The army, with all due respect, that knows how to bomb Iran – that army knows how to cope. Let them cope,” Deri told the ultra-Orthodox Kol Berama radio station.

“The army doesn’t want Haredi soldiers,” he claimed. “It’s a big headache for them. They want a secular army; they don’t want an army that listens to its rabbis.”

The military has said repeatedly that it urgently needs 12,000 new recruits amid the ongoing multifront conflict. Currently, approximately 80,000 Haredi men between the ages of 18 and 24 are eligible for military service but have not enlisted.

In July, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir reiterated that the military must expand its ranks and draft more ultra-Orthodox soldiers, as data showed an increase in Haredi enlistment over the past year that still fell short of the army’s target number.

Deri said the paucity of Haredi soldiers in the military never posed a real problem, but “now that the enormous failure of the ‘small, technological army’ has come to light, all of a sudden it’s become clear that more soldiers are needed to defend the borders.”

But Deri said he did not feel obliged to urge Haredi men to enlist “until there are real tracks” within the military that would allow soldiers to maintain their strictly observant lifestyle, asserting: “The army has done almost nothing, has hardly moved.”

“There aren’t real tracks right now?” the interviewer interjected. “The Hasmonean Brigade?”

“I haven’t looked into that,” Deri said, claiming it was a matter for rabbis, not politicians, to examine.

The dedicated Haredi brigade, part of a new “David” track for Haredi soldiers, saw its first round of enlistment in 2025. All personnel in the unit and military base are male and lead an observant religious lifestyle.

Additionally, in February, the IDF approved new protocols regulating service conditions for Haredi troops.

Those apply to troops in the David track as well as two other new tracks: “Magen,” in which male Haredi soldiers, usually in a noncombat role, serve on a gender-segregated team within a unit that also has female troops; and “Herev,” which is also gender-segregated for the ultra-Orthodox troops, such as the Kfir Brigade’s Netzah Yehuda Battalion or the Israeli Air Force technicians’ units for Haredim.

During the radio interview, Deri took issue with ex-IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot, whose Yashar party is leading in polls ahead of the October 27 election, for calling for a limit on the number of Haredi men who can study in yeshiva rather than go to the army.

“He said 3,000-3,500 [Haredi men], out of a cohort of 14,000, will sit and study, and the rest will be drafted by law. Who is this Sanhedrin that will decide [your] son can sit and study, but Aryeh Deri’s son will go to the army?”

The Sanhedrin was the supreme rabbinical council in ancient Israel, dissolved in the fifth century. It is considered to have possessed greater religious authority than today’s rabbis or civil institutions.

Deri himself served in the IDF for several months, though far fewer than an ordinary term of service. His son Yanki, then 40 years old, enlisted in the wake of the October 7, 2023, attack, serving for what Channel 12 recently characterized as “a short period of time.”

Responding to Deri’s radio comments, Eisenkot said in a statement: “Aryeh, it’s over. This time, you’ll cope.”

“The IDF and those who serve have coped for years already. If you were connected to the Jewish people and the State of Israel, you’d know well just how much they’ve coped,” continued Eisenkot, who lost a son and a nephew in the Gaza war.

Deri’s comments were also denounced by B’Yachad leader Naftali Bennett, who said in a statement: “Aryeh Deri cannot sit in one more government in Israel. The IDF is crying out for soldiers and Deri is lying and making excuses. It won’t happen on our watch.”

Efforts by the current government to enshrine in law a blanket ultra-Orthodox exemption from the draft have drawn fierce opposition from reservists, Knesset legal advisers and much of the public.

The coalition sought in July to halt arrests of Haredi draft evaders for seven months, but the High Court froze the legislation before it could take effect and later extended the freeze while considering petitions against the law.

Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.