Former chief rabbi says ultra-Orthodox must not serve in army, provoking outrage
Widespread condemnation comes from Prime Minister’s Office, ministers, opposition MKs after Yitzhak Yosef declares that even those not engaged in Torah study should shun the IDF
Former Sephardic chief rabbi Yitzhak Yosef caused a wave of outrage after saying Saturday night that even ultra-Orthodox men who are not studying in yeshiva should not be drafted into the Israel Defense Forces.
Yosef’s remarks came as the army is moving to draft thousands of ultra-Orthodox men, despite fierce pushback from the community, which has traditionally enjoyed wide exemptions from national service, unlike other Jewish Israelis. The exemptions are largely based on a framework in which ultra-Orthodox men spend their days studying Torah in recognized institutions rather than performing national service.
“It is forbidden to go to the army, even for one who is idle [not learning],” said Yosef, a top figure in the coalition’s Shas party, in remarks reported by Hebrew media outlets. Yosef, who has in the past urged against drafting members of the ultra-Orthodox community, known as Haredim, also said that others who have joined the army “went bad” — meaning they became irreligious.
“They will all become secular,” he warned.
On Sunday, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement that Yosef’s words were “unacceptable and worthy of all condemnation.”
“We will not accept expressions of insubordination from any side,” it said — a reference to former state attorney Moshe Lador’s comments the day before urging Israeli Air Force pilots to stop volunteering for reserve duty if the government revives its highly contentious judicial overhaul program.

In a statement, President Isaac Herzog said he “strongly condemns” calls for refusal to join the armed forces.
Serving in the IDF, he said, “is a tremendous privilege” and any harm to the army “is harm to the security of the country and its citizens.”
Those who still doesn’t understand that, even after the devastating October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on the country, Herzog continued, “should urgently wake up and behave differently.”
MK Moshe Saada, from the ruling Likud party, called for Yosef to be investigated.
“Anyone who breaks the law and calls for people not to enlist should be investigated,” Saada told Army Radio.
Opposition Leader MK Yair Lapid said that Yosef’s remarks “deserve all condemnation from across the political spectrum.”
“Calling for shirking at a time of war — and this from someone who received a wage from the state for an official role — is crossing a red line that endangers the democracy of the country and undermines our future,” Lapid said.

National Unity chief Benny Gantz and Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman also slammed Yosef, respectively stating that “calls for evasion are wrong, dangerous and illegitimate” and that such rhetoric constitutes “a serious blow to the unity of the people and national resilience.”
Amid the outcry, a Shas party spokesman said in a statement that Yosef had intended to stress the need to ensure that Haredi men are drafted into a “suitable framework” and was not calling for blanket refusal to serve.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox coalition partners have been pushing for the passage of a law regulating military exemptions for yeshiva students and other members of the Haredi community, after the High Court ruled in June that the dispensations, in place for decades, were illegal.
Most Israelis outside the community want to scrap the broad Haredi exemptions from IDF service.

The Haredi religious and political leadership fiercely resists any effort to draft young men.
Israelis who do serve say the decades-long arrangement of mass exemptions unfairly burdens them and their families, a sentiment that has intensified since the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught and the ensuing war, in which more than 780 soldiers have been killed and some 300,000 citizens were called up to reserve duty.
The military has said that it currently requires some 10,000 new soldiers — 75 percent of whom would be combat troops — amid the multifront war.
Last month it sent out 1,000 draft orders to Haredi men, the first batch out of a planned 7,000, prompting Haredi demonstrators to block the Route 4 highway in central Israel.