Haredi yeshiva students co-opt hostage families’ slogans and symbols to protest arrest of draft dodgers

Thousands of young Haredi yeshiva students rallied against arrests of draft evaders outside the Beit Lid military prison earlier today.

They came dressed in yellow hats, and some held yellow balloons, in a bid to use the symbols and rhetoric of the hostage families’ struggle in the ultra-Orthodox campaign against IDF conscription.

The protesters, students from the Ateret Shlomo yeshiva network, are seen gathered outside the detention facility where draft dodger Ariel Shamai is being held, after Military Police detained him last week.

The yellow hats are emblazoned with the slogan: “Bring him back to yeshiva now,” playing off the popular “Bring them home” slogan that came to symbolize the plight of the Gaza captives.

The head of the school network, Rabbi Sholom Ber Sorotzkin, justifies comparing detained draft dodgers to those taken captive by Hamas on October 7. “They accuse us of using the symbols of the hostages, but they yanked Ariel from his home,” he says, quoted by Hebrew outlets.

“The hostages are ours as well. We studied for them. We performed large miracles for them so that they could escape captivity,” he continues, insisting that to “pry us away from Torah is to cut off oxygen from a sick patient.”

Earlier today, the hardline Jerusalem Faction said that Beersheba police arrested another yeshiva student who refused to report for duty after receiving a draft notice. He was handed over to the Military Police, according to the group’s statement.

אלפי ילדי תלמודי תורה של רשת "עטרת שלמה" בעצרת מול כלא 10 שם יושב העריק אריאל שמאי שנעצר. בהמשך להשווה התמוהה – תלמידים לובשים כובעים צהובים עם סמל החטופים ועליהם כתוב "מחזירים אותו לישיבה עכשיו", על משקל "מחזירים אותם הביתה עכשיו" – אחת מססמאות מטה החטופים.
צילום: יהודה… pic.twitter.com/r8hN6ltpCV

— שילה פריד???????? (@shilofreid) October 27, 2025