From Digging in, Haredi minister rejects any compromise on military draft bill
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"
A leading ultra-Orthodox politician says his community is unwilling to compromise on legislation meant to regulate mandatory military draft orders for Haredi men, declaring that the only acceptable solution is a blanket exemption for yeshiva students and others.
Speaking with the ultra-Orthodox Hamevaser daily, Heritage Minister Meir Porush (United Torah Judaism) insists that “only an arrangement that guarantees deferrals for every yeshiva or kollel student whose ‘Torah is his profession’ will be acceptable.”
Hamevaser is widely considered a mouthpiece for Porush’s Agudat Yisrael political faction.
Porush has previously insisted that it would be impossible to find a compromise on the enlistment of yeshiva students that would be acceptable to both UTJ and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition is seeking to pass legislation that would set a nominal quota for recruits from the Haredi community, answering ultra-Orthodox demands that they hold onto military draft exemptions they have enjoyed for decades but were struck down by the courts.
Porush’s statement comes after Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein, who has delayed sending the bill to the Knesset for a vote, insisted Tuesday that the number of Haredim drafted into the army must be boosted significantly.
Addressing lawmakers in the Knesset, Edelstein said that the low number of yeshiva students the IDF says it has the capacity to absorb “is not acceptable.”
The Times of Israel Community.