IDF to approve orders regulating service conditions for Haredi troops in coming weeks

By Sam Sokol 16 December 2025, 12:25 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 Boaz Bismuth leads a Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, December 16, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Responding to demands by Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth, the IDF has said it will soon approve a General Staff order formalizing arrangements facilitating service conditions for ultra-Orthodox troops, a spokesperson for the lawmaker confirms to The Times of Israel.

According to the ultra-Orthodox news site Behadrei Haredim, which broke the story, the IDF informed the committee that the relevant orders “are expected to be signed within about two weeks” and that, should they not be signed within that period, the army will provide the committee with a reason for the delay.

Such an order would address concerns expressed by some Haredi leaders, such as Rabbi Moshe Maya, a member of the Shas party’s ruling Council of Torah Sages, who told Radio Kol Hai in August that any arrangements governing the service conditions of ultra-Orthodox troops must be anchored in such an order or they would be “worthless.”

Addressing the Knesset State Control Committee in September, Maj. Gen. Dado Bar Kalifa, the head of the IDF’s Personnel Directorate, told lawmakers that the military was “committed to creating a General Staff order and an adviser on Haredi affairs — and the chief of staff has already approved it.”

However, the orders continued to be delayed, prompting Bismuth to write to Kalifa in November.

Behadrei Haredim reports that IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir received a copy of the proposed orders last month, which he then forwarded to three reserve generals to review, leading to the current delay.

Despite Bismuth’s spokesperson’s confirmation, a member of the committee tells The Times of Israel that he had not heard of the IDF’s response except by way of the Behadrei Haredim report.

The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is currently debating the latest version of a coalition bill, drafted by Bismuth, which would continue to grant military service exemptions to full-time yeshiva students while ostensibly increasing conscription among graduates of Haredi educational institutions.