From the Liveblog of
Sunday, July 6, 2025
Lapid: Government’s approach to Haredi draft legislation will reveal its true priorities
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"
Ahead of the expected unveiling of Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chair Yuli Edelstein’s Haredi draft legislation, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid says that the way in which it is presented will show what the government’s true priorities are.
“If Yuli Edelstein, under pressure from Netanyahu, presents the law to the ultra-Orthodox before presenting it to soldiers and reservists, that sums up the whole story of the ‘evasion law,'” Lapid says.
According to the ultra-Orthodox Kikar Hashabbat news website, former Sephardic chief rabbi Yitzhak Yosef has announced that the Shas Council of Torah Sages will soon gather to discuss the latest version of the bill.
Yosef also said yesterday evening that “if the leaders of the government” understood how much protection yeshiva students’ Torah study provides for the country, they would increase their stipends instead of discussing sanctions for draft dodging.
The Times of Israel Community.