Thousands of Haredim protest against conscription in Jerusalem

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox men gather on Jerusalem’s Yirmiyahu Street for a major anti-conscription demonstration.

The rally is the initiative of a group of leading ultra-Orthodox rabbis, including Rabbi Moshe Tzedakah, a member of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages, as well as rabbis representing, among others, the Slonim and Chernobyl Hasidic groups.

It is also connected to the Jerusalem Faction, an extremist ultra-Orthodox group numbering some 60,000 members, which is considered among the most conservative of Haredi factions and regularly demonstrates against the enlistment of yeshiva students.

While attendance will be significantly lower than the 200,000 ultra-Orthodox men who blocked the entrance to Jerusalem in October, organizers claim “tens of thousands” of people are expected to attend.

The streets of Jerusalem are plastered with flyers against the government’s draft exemption bill — which many in the community believe does not do enough to absolve them of service — and the Haredi Shas party, which supports it.

Protesters carry signs saying one can either be Haredi or serve in the army, and calling Israel an apartheid state for its alleged mistreatment of the community.

Rabbis addressing the gathering say avoiding army service is a matter of life and death, priming cheers from the crowd and people perched on balconies and looking out windows.

One speaker calls conscription efforts “a holocaust” and an attempt to destroy the Jewish people. “Conscription to the army is destruction!” he screams.

Dozens of rabbis sit on an elevated dais before the crowd, gathered under a giant banner that decries the bill as a “decree of destruction” and states, “Better to die than transgress.”