More Shas MKs visit draft dodgers in military prison, praise their ‘selfless dedication’

By Sam Sokol 18 December 2025, 3:57 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"

Shas MKs Michael Malkieli and Haim Biton visit ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers in military prison, December 18, 2025. (Courtesy)

For the third time this month, lawmakers belonging to the ultra-Orthodox Shas party visit yeshiva students held in military prison for draft dodging.

MKs Michael Malkieli and Haim Biton met with yeshiva students jailed “for the crime of studying Torah,” a party spokesman says in a statement, quoting the lawmakers as telling the evaders that “an entire generation rests upon your shoulders. Your selfless dedication to the Torah will be remembered for generations.”

Last Thursday, MKs Yoav Ben-Tzur and Uriel Buso made a similar visit, updating the prisoners on their party’s efforts “to secure their release and to advance legislation in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to regulate their status,” according to a previous statement.

The week before, fellow Shas MKs Moshe Abutbul and Yonatan Mashriki also visited draft dodgers in prison, informing them that the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox faction was working “to immediately advance the law that will regulate the status of yeshiva students” and allow them to return to their studies.

The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is debating a controversial government-backed bill to regulate the conscription of ultra-Orthodox men. The legislation, as currently laid out, would continue to grant exemptions to military service to full-time yeshiva students while purporting to increase conscription among graduates of Haredi educational institutions.

Some 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged between 18 and 24 are believed to be eligible for military service, but have not enlisted. The IDF 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. The IDF has arrested multiple draft dodgers in recent months as part of an effort at enforcement.

The bill is supported by Shas, while the United Torah Judaism party’s Degel HaTorah and Agudat Yisrael factions are split. Some members of the coalition, including within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, have come out against the bill, which has been dismissed as an “evasion law” by critics.