Top ultra-Orthodox rabbis double down on rejection of any Haredi enlistment to IDF

By Sam Sokol 30 July 2025, 10:24 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"

Haredi rabbis attend a conference against efforts to draft ultra-Orthodox youths into the IDF in Kibbutz Ma'ale Hahamisha, on July 30, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/FLASH90)

The top rabbinic leadership of the ultra-Orthodox community rejects any conscription legislation containing quotas or enlistment targets for yeshiva students, declaring that it was “forbidden to go to any military framework.”

‘No sanctions and decrees, punishments and arrests will affect us in any way to divert us from our ways,” the rabbis say in a statement following a gathering at the central Israeli kibbutz of Ma’ale Hahamisha.

The meeting, which is the initiative of several Hasidic leaders, is aimed at coming to an agreement regarding how to advance efforts to obtain service exemptions for members of their communities.

Rabbi Meir Tzvi Bergman, an influential member of the rabbinical advisory panel steering the United Torah Judaism party, tells attendees of the conference that “a Haredi who enters the army does not leave the army as a Haredi” and that there is “an absolute prohibition against joining the army, and one must be willing to give their life for this,” Radio Kol Barama reports.

In a video tweeted by Ynet reporter Shilo Freid, Rabbi Yitzchok Zilberstein, a prominent posek, or decisor of Jewish law, could be heard saying that it is preferable to leave Israel rather than serve in the army.

“Listen, I am telling you to desecrate Shabbat on Shabbat eve and to flee the country,” he declares.

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

According to Channel 13, while they were initially slated to attend the conference, Shas chairman Aryeh Deri prevented members of his party’s ruling Council of Torah Sages from taking part in order not to create difficulties should the Haredi faction decide to return to the government.

At the same time as the conference in Ma’ale Hahamisha, Rabbi Dov Lando, the spiritual leader of UTJ’s Degel Hatorah faction, meets with Kollel student who was told by the army that he will be arrested if he does not report for duty in the coming days.

“Don’t go, don’t go at all,” the 94-year-old rabbi declares.

A second gathering of yeshiva deans is scheduled for tomorrow in the central Israeli city of Bnei Brak under the auspices of the Vaad HaYeshivot (Yeshiva Committee), which was until recently the Haredi community’s primary vehicle for coordination between ultra-Orthodox yeshivas and the Defense Ministry in matters of service deferments. A Times of Israel investigation this March found that the group has been actively advising yeshiva students to ignore enlistment orders in apparent violation of the law.