From the Liveblog of
Monday, December 1, 2025
Knesset committee discussing Haredi draft exemption legislation after bill’s reveal
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"
The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee resumes discussions on the government’s controversial bill to regulate ultra-Orthodox conscription, paving the way for its continued advancement toward the final two readings necessary for it to become law.
The session comes days after panel chairman Boaz Bismuth (Likud) released the text of the long-awaited bill on Thursday, prompting criticism from within coalition ranks, opposition figures and legal advisers, including the committee’s legal adviser, Miri Frenkel Shor.
The legislation, as currently laid out, would continue to grant military service exemptions to full-time yeshiva students while ostensibly increasing conscription among graduates of Haredi educational institutions.
However, the current bill removes various provisions from a previous version that were intended to ensure that those registered for yeshiva study are actually studying, and cancels all sanctions on draft evaders when they turn 26.
Many ultra-Orthodox young men are widely believed to register for yeshiva but not actually study, yet the yeshivas continue to be funded for their ostensible presence, and the young men evade military service.
For the past year, Haredi leadership has pushed to pass a law largely keeping its constituency out of the Israel Defense Forces, after the High Court ruled that decades-long blanket exemptions from army duty traditionally afforded to full-time Haredi yeshiva students were illegal.
Some 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged between 18 and 24 are currently believed to be eligible for military service, but have not enlisted. The Israel Defense Forces has said it urgently needs 12,000 recruits due to the strain on standing and reserve forces caused by the war against Hamas in Gaza and other military challenges.
In a statement, the opposition’s Yesh Atid party declares that its members in the committee “will continue to lead the fight this morning against the disgraceful Haredi draft-dodging law.”
“Yesh Atid will stop the law. It will not happen,” the party pledges.
The Times of Israel Community.