Netanyahu appeals to top rabbis in effort to prevent coalition rift over enlistment

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly held calls recently with leading ultra-Orthodox rabbis in hopes of keeping the United Torah Judaism party in his coalition amid a potential clash over the enlistment of yeshiva students.

According to media reports, Netanyahu spoke with Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach, the leader of the Belz Hasidic movement, the second-largest Hasidic sect in Israel, and Rabbi Moshe Hirsch, a prominent leader of the non-Hasidic stream of the Israeli ultra-Orthodox community.

Hirsch is one of the deans of Bnei Brak’s Slabodka yeshiva and a member of the Council of Torah Sages for the Degel Hatorah party, which makes up part of the United Torah Judaism party in Netanyahu’s governing coalition.

Netanyahu is working to head off an expected ultimatum by UTJ to withdraw from the government should it fail to pass legislation exempting yeshiva students from military service, the Kikar Hashabbat news site reports.

Writing to the prime minister earlier this month, three MKs belonging to the UTJ’s Agudat Yisrael faction had warned that they would vote against the budget unless a law exempting yeshiva students from mandatory military service was passed first.

However, UTJ chairman Yitzchak Goldknopf appeared to back down following the return of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party to the coalition, which gave Netanyahu room to maneuver around internal dissent.

Instead, the Gur Hasidic rebbe, Rabbi Yaakov Aryeh Alter, reportedly instructed Goldknopf to sign on to an alternate plan to pressure Netanyahu that would see the entire UTJ party united in threatening to withdraw from the government unless it passes an exemption bill within three months.

הדרמה ביהדות התורה – מרן האדמו"ר מגור נכנס כעת לפגישה היסטורית במעונו של מרן הגר"ד לנדו, לדיון עם חוק הגיוס והתקציב pic.twitter.com/4k7ftaqqlP

— אבי מוסקוב Avi moskoff (@AviMoskov) March 23, 2025

A bill dealing with the issue of Haredi IDF service, or the lack thereof, is currently stuck in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, whose chairman, Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, has said that the needs of the IDF must come first and that the panel would only advance the legislation if it legitimately addresses those needs.

Any effort to ensure its swift passage would be further complicated by the fact that the Knesset is expected to go on a one-month recess at the beginning of April.

According to Kikar Hashabbat, Netanyahu argued in his calls with Rokeach and Hirsch on Sunday that the three-month timeframe is impractical and that a law regulating enlistment cannot be passed that fast.