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Sunday, November 2, 2025
Knesset committee again delays hearing on ultra-Orthodox draft exemptions bill
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleAriela Karmel is a political correspondent at The Times of Israel. She previously reported for Calcalist and Haaretz. She holds an MA in Middle Eastern and African History from Tel Aviv University and a BA in Political Science from the University of British Columbia.
Discussion on Likud MK Boaz Bismuth’s controversial bill to regulate military conscription and exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox community has been removed from Monday’s agenda for the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, which he chairs, and postponed yet again.
The delay follows Hebrew media reports over the weekend that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested that Bismuth hold off on submitting the bill, reportedly to review it.
According to committee rules, a bill must be presented to the panel at least 48 hours before a discussion, which did not occur. No new date for the debate has been announced.
For the past year, ultra-Orthodox leadership has pushed to pass a law keeping its constituency, also known as Haredi, out of the IDF, after the High Court ruled that decades-long blanket exemptions from army duty traditionally afforded to full-time Haredi yeshiva students were illegal.
Bismuth replaced Likud MK Yuli Edelstein on the powerful committee to draft legislation more palatable to the Haredi parties, after the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties quit the government over Edelstein’s version of an enlistment bill, which would have levied harsh sanctions on draft evaders.
Some 200,000 ultra-Orthodox men staged a mass rally against the draft in Jerusalem last week.
The Times of Israel Community.