First 1,000 of 7,000 new Haredi enlistment orders sent out, sparking protests
Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox men block Route 4 near Bnei Brak, as extremist faction’s rabbi says sending Haredim to IDF ‘destroys the Torah, destroys Judaism and destroys everything’
The first 1,000 of 7,000 new draft orders to male members of the ultra-Orthodox community were sent out by the military Sunday, prompting Haredi demonstrators to block the Route 4 highway in central Israel.
The orders, which constitute the first stage in the screening and evaluation process that the army carries out for recruits ahead of enlistment in the military in the coming year, came after a landmark High Court ruling in June that said there was no longer any legal framework allowing the state to refrain from drafting Haredi yeshiva students into military service.
The decision to issue the draft orders was made by former defense minister Yoav Gallant a day before he was fired by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, earlier this month. Newly appointed Defense Minister Israel Katz did not cancel it, as some expected, angering ultra-Orthodox coalition partners.
In the afternoon, police said ultra-Orthodox demonstrators from the extremist Jerusalem Faction blocked the Route 4 highway in both directions near the city of Bnei Brak in protest of the decision.
Hebrew media reports said hundreds attended the rally.
Rabbi Zvi Friedman, a leader in the Jerusalem Faction, slammed the draft orders as a measure that “destroys the Torah, destroys Judaism, and destroys everything.”
“We must go out and demonstrate. We will do what we can to prevent this,” he said in a statement.
According to the Kan public broadcaster, Netanyahu’s associates have passed along a message to ease the concerns of the ultra-Orthodox parties.
While it is impossible to stop the draft orders, Netanyahu promised that it will be possible to pass a law that will provide exemptions and override the draft orders before it is necessary to send out arrest warrants for those who do not show up to recruitment centers, the report said, adding the message only convinced some lawmakers.
Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox coalition partners have pushed for the passage of a law regulating military exemptions for yeshiva students and other members of the Haredi community.
The ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism and Shas parties have accused both Gallant and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara of being the main obstacles to a bill enshrining the decades-long Haredi draft exemption.
The IDF announced Thursday that it had seen a significant increase in the number of ultra-Orthodox men who have been drafted into the military this year so far. However, it is still far from reaching its conscription goals.
The military has said that it currently requires some 10,000 new soldiers — 75 percent of whom would be combat troops — but can only accommodate the enlistment of an additional 3,000 ultra-Orthodox soldiers this year, due to their special needs. This would be in addition to some 1,800 Haredi soldiers who are already drafted annually.
Over the summer, the IDF Personnel Directorate sent out 3,000 draft orders to Haredi men aged 18-26. Out of those 3,000 men, less than 10% showed up at induction centers.
The dispute over the ultra-Orthodox community serving in the military is one of the most contentious in Israel, with decades of governmental and judicial attempts to settle the issue never achieving a stable resolution.
The Haredi religious and political leadership fiercely resists any effort to draft young men. Many ultra-Orthodox Jews believe that military service is incompatible with their way of life and fear that those who enlist will be secularized.
Israelis who do serve, however, say the decades-long arrangement of mass exemptions unfairly burdens them and their families, a sentiment that has intensified since the October 7, 2023, onslaught and the ensuing war, in which more than 780 soldiers have been killed and some 300,000 citizens have been called up to reserve duty.
