Prominent Haredi leader visits yeshiva students arrested for evading draft order

Prominent Haredi leader Rabbi Dov Lando arrives at the military prison in Beit Lid to visit brothers Rafael and Baruch Yitzhakov — yeshiva students from Tel Aviv who were arrested after failing to report to the draft office, according to a statement from his office.

The Haredi leadership, including Lando, who serves as the spiritual leader for the United Torah Judaism party’s Degel HaTorah faction and is one of the most prominent figures in the Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox community, has consistently told yeshiva students who receive draft orders to ignore them.

A video disseminated by his office shows Lando, who is 94, entering the section of the building devoted to family visits, escorted by some of his assistants.

The brothers were arrested on Wednesday, prompting a spokesman for Rabbi Dov Lando to state that Israel had “declared war on yeshiva students.”

Some 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged 18 to 24 are currently believed to be eligible for military service, but have not enlisted, although a year ago, the High Court ruled that the decades-long blanket exemptions from army duty traditionally afforded to the Haredi community were illegal.

For the past year, the Haredi leadership has refused any attempt to find a compromise to draft at least part of the ultra-Orthodox youth.