Haredi lawmaker says son is willing to go to prison rather than serve in the IDF

By Sam Sokol 28 January 2025, 1:23 pm

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Sam 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"

MK Yosef Taieb, chair of the Knesset Education, Culture, and Sports Committee leads a meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on January 25, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

A lawmaker belonging to the ultra-Orthodox Shas party announces that despite receiving an enlistment order from the IDF, his son is willing to go to prison rather than serve in the Israeli military.

“My son… received an order and he asked me what to do. I told him to ask the heads of his yeshiva and act according to their instructions,” MK Yosef Taieb tells Radio Kol Baramah.

“He sits and studies seriously and loves to learn. We will do what they instruct us to do. If they tell us that what should happen is that he should be arrested, then he will be arrested and learn Torah from prison.”

While some Shas politicians have called for drafting Haredim who do not study full-time in yeshiva, the Shas Council of Torah Sages, the spiritual leaders of the ultra-Orthodox party, instructed their followers last summer to ignore all initial draft orders.

Rabbi Moshe Maya, a senior member of the Shas Council of Torah Sages, told Radio Kol Baramah in June 2024 that it was “forbidden for those who don’t study to go to the army. Those who do will end up violating the Shabbat.”