Likud MK bullish on Haredi conscription bill’s chances; two far-right MKs noncommital

By Sam Sokol 2 December 2025, 5:53 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"

Likud MK Avichai Boaron attends a meeting of the Knesset House Committee, June 30, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Likud MK Avihai Boaron dismisses the criticism some of his coalition colleagues have aimed at the bill regulating Haredi conscription, arguing that while “maybe some adjustments need to be made here or there… ultimately, the law itself is a good law.”

“I don’t think there’s opposition inside the coalition. There are a few MKs who are uncomfortable with certain clauses, but precisely for that reason, we brought the bill to the committee table. You know what needs refining, it’s known, and the work will be done, and we’ll move forward, God willing,” he tells The Times of Israel on the sidelines of a Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee debate over the bill.

Boaron claims the bill will recruit tens of thousands of Haredim in a matter of years, significantly more than envisioned by previous opposition legislation, and will create a new reality on the ground in which Haredi soldiers will become accepted in the ultra-Orthodox community “because the rabbis approved this law and this framework, and the community will accept them.”

“Young Haredi people will live in the example of their older peers who are enlisting, and this will bring change,” he says. “Therefore, we need to be smarter and a bit less rigid,” and “we will bring exponential change in the recruitment of young Haredim who are not occupying the yeshiva benches.”

Asked about her party’s position on the bill, which has remained vague, committee member Limor Son Har-Melech of the far-right Otzma Yehudit is noncommittal, merely telling The Times of Israel that “we support Haredi recruitment, but we oppose a method that creates antagonism.” She declines to say whether she and her colleagues will vote in favor.

Likewise, the far-right Noam party’s sole MK, Avi Maoz, declines to definitively state how he will vote, telling The Times of Israel only that while he wants to see more Haredim in the military, he would only support a noncoercive bill that receives Haredi rabbinic approval.