From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, December 2, 2025
IDF personnel chief on Haredi draft: Military can ‘absorb everything needed,’ given notice
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. 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"
Addressing the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Brig. Gen. Shay Tayeb, head of the IDF Personnel Directorate’s Planning and Personnel Management Division, says that the army can handle an additional 5,760 Haredi soldiers this year and “given advance warning, it could absorb everything needed beyond that” going forward.
The coalition bill regulating Haredi conscription and exemptions, which is currently being debated in the committee, calls for recruitment goals of 8,160 conscripts in the first year; 6,840 in the second; 7,920 in the third; 8,500 in the fourth; and “no less than 50 percent of the annual enlistment cohort from graduates of Haredi educational institutions” in the fifth year.
This minimum threshold will also include those performing non-military security services, although this group will be capped at 10% of the total.
“First, I said in previous committees that I personally believe everyone can serve in the IDF because we have opened enough diverse tracks,” Tayeb tells lawmakers, adding that “these 10% do not contribute to what the IDF needs.”
The Times of Israel Community.