‘Free the hostages’: Hundreds of Haredim protest outside prison holding draft evaders

Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Israelis clashed with police outside the Beit Lid military prison on Thursday evening, following a protest against the detention of yeshiva students being held at the site for draft evasion.

The demonstrators from the hardline Jerusalem Faction, Slonim Hasidic sect and other ultra-Orthodox groups rushed police barricades in front of the prison before being pushed back by officers. After attempting to push their way through the police line, protesters burned and ripped up conscription orders before breaking out in a circle dance while chanting slogans against military service.

“We won’t give up on even one Haredi [to military service],” protesters yelled outside the prison before shouting a Yiddish exclamation meant to connote alarm. “Gevalt!”

According to Channel 12, nine ultra-Orthodox draft evaders have been detained since last week as part of the military’s effort to strengthen enforcement against draft dodgers. Two of the nine have since been let go, leaving seven still in the custody of the Military Police.

Thursday evening’s protest, which capped off a week of anti-enlistment demonstrations, was called by Rabbi Dov Lando, the spiritual leader of the United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party’s Degel HaTorah faction.

Degel HaTorah, along with the Hasidic Agudat Yisrael faction, make up the United Torah Judaism party. UTJ and fellow ultra-Orthodox party Shas have been pushing hard for the passage of a bill enabling the vast majority of ultra-Orthodox males to continue to avoid military conscription or other national service.

Lando, who has repeatedly told yeshiva students to ignore draft orders, visited two detainees at Beit Lid last week, telling them the “entire Haredi community” stood behind them and urging them to “be strong and hold firm,” according to his spokesman.

The IDF has since said the visit was made without proper authorization.

Sitting behind a sign stating “All of Haredi Judaism stands behind you,” Lando and other prominent rabbis read Psalms and recited prayers for the prisoners, drawing scorn from Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern, who came to the Thursday demonstration to “see for myself the people who say that if they go to the army, they will be going to hell.”

“They’re parasites,” the former chief of the IDF Personnel Directorate told The Times of Israel. “They are reciting psalms that we read against our enemies, but are directing them against the army.”

Haredi leaders say military service is a threat to their way of life and would keep ultra-Orthodox men from studying Torah. Some 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged between 18 and 24 are currently believed to be eligible for military service, but have not enlisted. The IDF has said it urgently needs 12,000 recruits, due to the strain on standing and reserve forces amid the ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza and other military challenges.

Last summer, the High Court of Justice ruled that longstanding mass exemptions for these yeshiva students were illegal. Since then, the IDF has significantly stepped up its efforts to recruit the eligible Haredi men, sending out 54,000 conscription orders in July alone, leading the Haredi community to declare “war.”

As the rabbis prayed during the Thursday demonstration, several attendees attacked journalists, pushing them back as they attempted to film them.

“If you don’t go back [to where you were], we’ll take you apart,” one of them screamed at a photographer after shoving him away, demanding the press respect their spiritual leaders.

While not officially part of the protest, a large contingent from the Jerusalem Faction attended the demonstration, screaming slogans such as “free the hostages,” in reference to the jailed draft dodgers, not the 50 Israelis who are being held captive in Gaza.

One young man yelled that United Torah Judaism MK Moshe Gafni was a traitor, presumably for not taking a hard enough line on the issue to satisfy the extremist group.

Another protester held up a sign calling on US President Trump to “please save us” from the state of Israel, which is “forcing us to rebel against God.”

Members of the Jerusalem Faction crowded Lando’s car as it left the rally, screaming “no to quotas and no to sanctions” and other slogans expressing opposition to any compromise on the issue of enlistment.

Local residents of the town located roughly five miles east of the coastal city of Netanya complained that Haredi demonstrators have been disrupting their lives all week, making noise late into the night.

“They walk through our streets after the protests, spit and yell and blow shofars,” said resident Roni as he watched the protest. “There are small children here.”

As the first demonstration ended around 10:30 p.m., members of the Slonim Hasidic sect and other groups began arriving for their own protest, during which Haredim clashed with police.

The Haredim are “fighting the main war,” Shraga, a young yeshiva student, told The Times of Israel. “The main war is the war on the evil inclination, that’s the whole point. That’s the reason why we live. And if we don’t have that, we have nothing.”

His rhetoric echoed that of MK Gafni, who earlier in the day claimed at a conference of the Yeshiva Students’ Committee that “the Jewish people cannot exist without Torah students.”

The government’s “current war against the Torah world is reminiscent of the Romans,” who “fought against the Jewish people to prevent them from learning Torah,” Gafni declared, adding that the Haredim would “fight with all our strength.”

Yisrael Beytenu party chairman Avigdor Liberman slammed the Haredi politician for his remarks, tweeting that “Gafni turns the IDF into an enemy, [MK Meir] Porush threatens civil war, and [United Torah Judaism leader Yitzhak] Goldknopf dismisses the pain of religious Zionism. The draft dodgers fight everyone: the state, the army, Zionism — just not the real enemy: Hamas.”

Speaking with the Haredi news site Kikar HaShabbat earlier this week, Porush warned that the conflict over ultra-Orthodox enlistment could escalate into a “civil war” if legislation is not passed regulating military service exemptions for yeshiva students.

Last month, Goldknopf sparked widespread outrage when he said it’s none of the Haredi community’s concern if other Israelis are dying while fighting in a war, while they refuse to join.

On Thursday morning, members of the Brothers and Sisters in Arms protest group held a demonstration outside the Tel Aviv home of Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth, pledging that they would not allow him to pass an “evasion law” exempting ultra-Orthodox Jews from military service.