Opposition parties submit request for special Knesset session on Haredi conscription

By Sam Sokol 30 July 2025, 2:44 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"

Head of The Democrats party Yair Golan, head of National Unity party Benny Gantz, head of Yesh Atid party Yair Lapid and head of Yisrael Beytenu party Avigdor Liberman hold a joint press conference at the Knesset, November 6, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The leaders of the opposition announce they have gathered enough signatures to hold a special Knesset session during the current recess to discuss the coalition’s efforts to pass legislation exempting ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students from military conscription.

In a joint statement, the opposition heads write that they have submitted a “25 signatures” request to the Knesset secretariat’s table calling for “an emergency meeting of the Knesset plenum to discuss the following topics: advancing the evasion law during wartime, bringing back the hostages, and advancing an immediate deal to end the fighting in Gaza.”

A date for the special session will be determined later, the statement says.

Despite being part of the opposition, neither the Arab-majority Hadash-Ta’al party nor Islamist Ra’am is involved in the initiative.

Both the Ashkenazi United Torah Judaism and Sephardic Shas parties have been pushing hard for the passage of legislation enabling most ultra-Orthodox males to continue to avoid military conscription or other national service, in the wake of last year’s High Court decision that such exemptions are illegal on equality grounds.

Earlier this month, UTJ quit the coalition after being presented with a copy of a proposed enlistment bill prepared by the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee’s then-chairman, Yuli Edelstein, which it argued had violated the terms of a supposed compromise reached the previous month.

They were quickly followed by Shas, which, while quitting the government, has remained part of the coalition.

The Knesset entered a nearly three-month-long recess on July 27. It will reconvene on October 19 for the winter session.

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 amid the ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza and other military challenges. Some 2,700 Haredim enlisted over the past year, far short of the IDF’s goal of 4,800.