Haredi anti-draft protests decry dodgers' arrests, co-opting hostage families' rhetoric

‘Until the last hostage’: Protest groups use fliers and slogans likening detainees to those kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7; demonstrators block roads, throw stones, call cops ‘Nazis’

By Charlie Summers

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and Sam Sokol 22 October 2025, 10:47 pm

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Haredi anti-draft demonstrators protested nationwide Wednesday against the arrest of three yeshiva students the previous night, as the IDF ramps up its enforcement action against ultra-Orthodox draft evaders.

To publicize the mass demonstrations taking place, Haredi protest groups put out fliers co-opting hostages’ families’ posters and rhetoric, comparing detained draft dodgers to those taken captive by Hamas on October 7.

One such poster condemning the arrest of yeshiva student Ariel Shamai was emblazoned with a yellow ribbon and read, “Return him to yeshiva now,” accompanied by smaller text: “Until the last hostage.”

In Jerusalem, dozens of protesters gathered to block traffic, with some throwing stones at cars passing on Bar Lev Road, police said.

Footage shared by law enforcement showed ultra-Orthodox attempting to block vehicles on the thoroughfare running through the city.

Near Bnei Brak, police geared up for a large anti-draft protest to take place on Route 4 and closed the road to traffic, only for another group of demonstrators to gather within the city itself, the Kan public broadcaster reported.

הפרות סדר בבירה: חרדים שמפגינים נגד מעצר עריקים חוסמים את כביש בר לב בירושלים ועוד צירים של הרכבת הקלה, תוך כדי שהם מיידים אבנים לעבר כלי רכב חולפים pic.twitter.com/OFXOj9becC

— ישראל היום (@IsraelHayomHeb) October 22, 2025

According to Ynet, police arrested three protesters who were blocking the major central highway. According to police, the protesters clashed with officers, called them “Nazis” and threatened them.

Hundreds of protesters also demonstrated outside the Beit Lid military prison, demanding that the draft evaders go free.

Two remain in custody after one of the students, who was nabbed by Military Police while sitting shiva for his recently deceased father, went free on Wednesday afternoon.

Ultra-Orthodox activists and lawmakers on Wednesday raged against what they described as a “wave of arrests,” framing the military’s activities as “religious persecution” aimed at criminalizing Torah scholars.

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men attend a protest against the jailing of yeshiva students who failed to comply with army recruitment orders, Jerusalem, October 22, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

United Torah Judaism chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf slammed the arrests, claiming that yeshiva students “have been made into criminals — solely because they are Torah learners, all under the auspices of the government of Israel.”

According to the hardline Jerusalem Faction, the IDF resumed enforcement operations on Friday, raiding a number of homes in Jerusalem, the West Bank community of Adam, Ramat Gan and Givatayim.

The Haredi community is planning a major rally against the conscription of yeshiva students on Sunday, a spokesman for Rabbi Dov Lando said Wednesday. Lando is the spiritual leader of the Degel HaTorah faction and one of the senior heads of the non-Hasidic “Lithuanian” branch of Haredi Judaism in Israel.

“At the instruction of the leader of the generation, Rabbi Dov Lando, preparations are underway for a central prayer rally on Sunday,” the spokesman said in a terse statement with no additional information.

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men attend a protest against the jailing of yeshiva students who ignored enlistment orders in Mea Shearim, October 22, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

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 Israel Defense Forces said a few months ago that it urgently needed 12,000 recruits due to the strain on standing and reserve forces caused by the war against Hamas in Gaza and other military challenges.

For the past year, the Haredi leadership has pushed to pass a law keeping its constituency out of the IDF, after the High Court ruled that decades-long blanket exemptions from army duty traditionally afforded to full-time Haredi yeshiva students were illegal.

In the absence of an exemption law, the IDF and the Attorney General’s Office this summer announced a new plan to bolster enforcement against draft evaders, leading to an increase in the number of arrests and a wave of anti-conscription protests by members of the Haredi community.

The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is expected to present a bill regulating ultra-Orthodox enlistment next week.