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Tuesday, December 2, 2025
Critics of Haredi draft bill fail to amend introduction to stress value of IDF service
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Critics of the government’s bill regulating ultra-Orthodox conscription fail to amend the the bill’s introduction, which lists its objectives, during a debate in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
The bill states that its goal is to “regulate the status of full-time yeshiva students while recognizing the importance of Torah study.” However, while it asserts that it aims to “reduce inequality in conscription for regular military service, including through the integration of members of the Haredi public into civil-security service,” it also states that full-time yeshiva students who do not engage in any other vocation can be granted annual deferments from enlistment.
It is up to lawmakers to decide which purposes listed have priority or if all will be given equal weight, states committee legal adviser Miri Frenkel Shor, who insists that she had not yet given her final opinion on the bill despite reports that she is against it.
Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth (Likud) ends the discussion without any changes to the text, despite appeals from opposition lawmakers.
Addressing the committee, Yesh Atid MK Moshe Tur-Paz insists that the bill’s language should be amended to emphasize the value of “military service and civilian service, all while recognizing the importance of Torah study” in order to “address the issue of inequality.”
The Times of Israel Community.