From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, August 6, 2025
Senior Haredi leader threatens ‘global struggle like never before’ over IDF draft
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. 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"
The spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Degel HaTorah party accuses the government of waging war on the Haredi community, following the arrest of two Haredi draft evaders.
“The State of Israel has declared war on yeshiva students. Haredi Judaism will embark on a global struggle like never before,” a spokesman for Rabbi Dov Lando, one of the most prominent rabbinic leaders of the so-called “Lithuanian” stream of ultra-Orthodoxy, declares in a statement.
Alongside the Hasidic Agudat Yisrael, Degel Hatorah is one of the two factions in the United Torah Judaism party.
Lando’s statement comes as he consults with Haredi activists at his home in Bnei Brak, in order to arrive at “a consensus for a response” among the various Haredi sub-groups.
Addressing a rabbinical conference in the central city of Bnei Brak last week, Lando warned that if Israeli authorities begin to arrest yeshiva students for draft evasion, the Haredi community will “make the world tremble, with all our strength and heart” and that the government would find itself facing “a united, global Haredi Jewry that is fighting for its very soul.”
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