‘Extremely disappointed’ reservist groups slam government’s deal on Haredi draft

The wife of a reservist accused Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein on Thursday of “selling [serving Israelis] to slavery” by agreeing to a compromise with ultra-Orthodox parties that would delay by two years the enactment of significant sanctions on Haredi draft evaders.

“We’ve given up our lives for the State of Israel,” said attorney Shvut Raanan, who represents the Reservists’ Wives Home Front group, in footage from a meeting with Edelstein aired on Channel 12 on Thursday. “The most dedicated are being injured, going back [to fight] and dying.”

Crying as she held an infant, Raanan continued: “We’re at war, and you’re talking about two more years?”

The meeting came after Edelstein on Wednesday night reached a deal with Haredi parties that had threatened to topple the government over its failure to codify their community’s exemption from military service.

Edelstein, who had previously demanded harsh sanctions on Haredi draft evaders, reportedly agreed that future punitive legislation for draft evaders would initially limit only subsidies for academic study, international travel and drivers’ licenses — measures that leaders of the insular community had already agreed to.

According to Channel 12, Edelstein told dozens of representatives from various reservist groups in the Thursday meeting that he stood by the compromise, which he saw as a basis for negotiations with Haredi parties, but that he would consult with the organizations moving forward.

The representatives came out of the meeting “extremely disappointed,” the network said.

In footage from the meeting, Maj. (res.) Matan Yaffe of the El HaDegel reservist movement could be seen telling Edelstein the legislation has to include sanctions “with teeth — real things, not things that embolden the rabbinic establishment that tells us, ‘You go to hell, go serve your country.'”

“This is a unique opportunity that won’t return, and all of us here are counting on you,” said Yaffe.

חובת צפייה – זעקת המילואימניקים ובני משפחותיהם היום בפגישה אצל יולי אדלשטיין – ״מוכרים אותנו בשביל עסקנות״. pic.twitter.com/Ak5Z1kA8Yq

— דפנה ליאל (@DaphnaLiel) June 12, 2025

As part of its efforts to accommodate the Haredi parties, the government is preparing a decision to transfer some NIS 100 million ($28.1 million) to yeshivas whose students don’t enlist, despite a High Court ruling last year that such funding was illegal, Channel 12 reported.

According to the report, the money would act as a stopgap for some NIS 500 million ($140.5 million) that Haredi parties have demanded for their respective school systems as part of the Education Ministry’s “Ofek Hadash” (New Horizon) teacher remuneration program.

The Ofek Hadash transfer to Haredi schools is currently suspended over legal difficulties stemming from the low amount of time devoted to secular subjects in the schools. The draft government decision would seek to work around those legal difficulties, and would be passed in either the coming cabinet meeting or the next one, Channel 12 said.

Public outrage over Haredi draft evasion has swelled as reservists have served for hundreds of days since the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza.

According to the Kan public broadcaster, had the government sought to recruit some 80,000 Haredi draft evaders at the same rate that it has recruited non-Haredi Jews, rounds of reserve duty could have been shortened by roughly 86%.