High Court orders government to explain failure to draft Haredi men despite 2024 ruling
Tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students yet to be sent military conscription orders, while response rate to such orders is minimal and IDF’s manpower shortage is acute
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
The High Court of Justice issued a provisional order on Sunday demanding the government explain its failure to issue enough conscription orders to ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students to meet the needs of the IDF, and its failure to enforce the orders it has issued.
The order instructed the government to explain those failures to the court in a written statement by June 24.
Provisional orders switch the burden of proof from the petitioners to the respondent, in this case the defense minister and the government, and generally indicate that the court believes there to be some merit in the petition.
The order came within the framework of petitions asking the High Court to order the government to abide by the court’s June 2024 ruling that there was no longer a legal framework for issuing blanket military service exemptions to ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students, and that the government must begin drafting them.
In the wake of the High Court ruling last year, the IDF sent out 18,915 initial draft orders to eligible ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students in several waves between July 2024 and March 2025.
But only two percent of those who received the orders actually enlisted, while there are some 70,000 Haredi yeshiva students who are eligible for the draft but who do not serve.
The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, whose petition resulted in the June 2024 ruling, filed a new petition in July that year asking the court to order the government to implement the ruling.
And earlier this month in a further motion, the organization noted the extremely low rate of enlistment since the July 2024 decision; the fact that tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students have not been sent conscription orders; and the fact that there has been little enforcement against the thousands who have received orders but have not complied with them.
It therefore asked the court to order the government to immediately send conscription orders to all Haredi yeshiva students, and to increase enforcement measures against those who received the orders but failed to present themselves for initial processing by the military.
There are currently few options available to the IDF and Defense Ministry for enforcing enlistment orders, other than imposing a ban on leaving the country and detention by military police in military detention centers.
In its provisional order on Sunday, the court said the government must explain “Why it should not issue, or continue to issue, conscription orders for candidates for security service… in a scope appropriate to the needs of the army, as has been presented… by professional officials in the army.”
The army has stated that it is facing a shortage of troops and currently needs some 12,000 new soldiers — 7,000 of whom would be combat troops.
The court added that the state must explain “why it should not act to enforce the orders that were issued, including by taking effective, personal enforcement measures against those who were issued with orders but did not present themselves [to the army].”
The Movement for Quality Government called the provisional order “a significant step” toward the conscription of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox coalition partners have been pushing for the passage of legislation enshrining military exemptions for yeshiva students and other members of the Haredi community in the wake of the High Court ruling.
Sam Sokol contributed to this report.
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