IDF to issue 54,000 conscription orders to Haredi yeshiva students in July
Military will also increase enforcement measures against Orthodox draft dodgers, including speeding up enforcement process and tightening travel bans
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
In a decision that will further exacerbate the already severe coalition crisis, the Attorney General’s Office announced Thursday night that the IDF will issue in July some 54,000 conscription orders to ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students, as well as send enlistment orders to ultra-Orthodox youths approaching the age of conscription.
Although the orders will be issued in July, the dates on which those receiving the orders must present themselves at IDF recruitment offices will be staggered throughout the upcoming conscription year, which starts on July 1, 2025.
In addition, the IDF will also increase enforcement measures against the thousands of ultra-Orthodox men who have received conscription orders in the last year but have failed to present themselves at IDF recruitment offices.
The announcement Thursday night comes against the background of sharp threats by the ultra-Orthodox political parties and their rabbinic leaders to vote in favor of early elections unless the coalition advances legislation that will reinstate the blanket military service exemptions which Haredi yeshiva students enjoyed until July 2023, when they expired.
Existing efforts to draft the Haredi youth have also sparked protests.
Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox demonstrators from the extremist Jerusalem Faction blocked Route 4 in Bnei Brak on Thursday, protesting the arrest of a yeshiva student who avoided military recruitment.
Police at the scene clashed with protesters as they tried to reopen the major highway.
Meir Borochov, 20, was sentenced to 20 days in military prison after his arrest at Ben Gurion Airport for avoiding military service on the eve of the Shavuot festival, according to Hebrew media reports.
The latest statement on conscription came after a meeting on Thursday between Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, the head of the IDF’s manpower directorate and other legal and military officials, to discuss compliance with a High Court decision on the obligation of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students to perform military service in June 2024, and as part of the state’s response to High Court petitions demanding enforcement of that decision.
In that meeting, the head of the IDF’s Personnel Directorate Maj. Gen. Dado Bar Kalifa said the army would send out conscription orders to 54,000 ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students who were 18 and over back in February 2024.
The High Court ruled at that time that a provision of the law for military service exempting an individual from conscription if they are not drafted within two years of turning 18 would not apply to yeshiva students whose conscription was delayed after the law expired in July 2023.
Those yeshiva students will now be drafted this coming July.
In addition, Bar Kalifa said that the IDF would be sending out enlistment notices to ultra-Orthodox boys aged 16 and a half, just as it sends out such notices to all other eligible Israeli men of that age.
The IDF will also be soon presenting a “program for voluntary enlistment” for those receiving enlistment orders, ahead of July.
It will present this plan alongside “concrete steps to increase enforcement regarding draft dodgers,” which will include active steps by the army, such as improving the enforcement of bans on draft dodgers leaving the country at the airport, and improving coordination with the police when they encounter draft dodgers.
Significantly, IDF officials at the meeting said that the military would be substantially reducing the time period between an individual receiving a first draft order and determining them to be a draft dodger.
Until now, it has taken many months for such a status to be imposed on an individual ignoring draft orders, meaning that enforcement measures are also significantly delayed.
Reducing the amount of time before an individual is declared a draft dodger means that enforcement measures could be taken much quicker and result in large numbers of young Haredi men under legal sanction, a situation which would enrage the ultra-Orthodox rabbinic leadership.
The IDF said these enforcement measures would be carried out against draft dodgers of all societal backgrounds, and not just against those from the Haredi community.
Last month, Bar Kalifa told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that just 1,212, or five percent, of the 24,000 ultra-Orthodox men who have received initial draft notices since July 2024 had begun the enlistment process.
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