Over 1,000 activists marching to Knesset to demand ultra-Orthodox military service

Over a thousand activists are staging a march and rally in Jerusalem demanding that ultra-Orthodox men be required to perform military service, against the background of the government’s efforts to pass a law that would reinstate blanket exemptions for most Haredi yeshiva students.

The demonstrators are marching from the Chords Bridge at the city entrance to the Knesset, where a rally will be held.

They include former prime minister Naftali Bennett, former minister Gadi Eisenkot and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, all rivals of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in this year’s Knesset election.

“We need legislation for an enlistment law that is fair to those who serve and does not allow the ultra-Orthodox to continue to evade the draft,” says Neta Rosenberg, 19, who is currently in the Aderet pre-military academy.

“I’m enlisting next year, but there are many people my age who will be sitting in air-conditioned rooms and studying Torah while others contribute to the country, endanger their lives, and enlist,” continues Rosenberg.

He says that the state should cease all funding to ultra-Orthodox yeshivas and institutions if the community refuses to send its men to military service, although he says some proposals, such as Lapid’s suggestion to deny the evaders the right to vote, are not acceptable.

“If there are people not taking an active part in the country then they are creating a divide in the nation and creating animosity as well.”

Dvir Even Chen, 18, who is also in a pre-military academy and is enlisting next year, says that all sectors of the country need to share the burden of military service equally.

“It’s our country, we have to take care of it, and if we don’t, no one else will,” she says.

Even Chen rejects arguments from the ultra-Orthodox that they have to study Torah to protect the country, noting that young religious Zionist men and women both study Torah and enlist, and that she herself is in a religious pre-military academy with many other young religious women.

“You can study and enlist, and protect the country at the same time. The two are not contradictory.”