From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Shas MK says Haredim won’t serve in the army without community’s consent
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam 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"
MK Yinon Azulai of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party pushes back against criticism of Defense Minister Israel Katz’s enlistment plan, arguing that he is “not sure that the army can absorb all the Haredim and wants to absorb all the Haredim.”
Speaking during a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Azulai says he agrees with Katz’s assertion that legislation regulating ultra-Orthodox enlistment must be advanced with the agreement of that community’s leadership because “because nothing will happen without consent.”
Were the army to send enlistment orders to the entirety of eligible Haredi young men, a figure he puts at 80,000, even those who would have otherwise enlisted will refuse to do so, he claims.
“The fact that [United Torah Judaism MK] Yaakov [Asher] and I are sitting here indicates the agreement of the rabbis for us to hold talks,” he continues.
“There is no quota for Torah students. This is a Jewish country.”
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