Ultra-Orthodox leaders visit jailed Haredi draft dodgers

Agudat Yisrael chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf and MK Meir Porush visit ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers in military prison, claiming, falsely, that they have been incarcerated for studying Torah.

“Our hearts are broken to see a 19-year-old boy, who completed the Talmud twice and has spent his entire life studying Torah, languishing in prison simply because he wanted to continue studying in the yeshiva. It is difficult to accept this reality, especially under a right-wing government,” says Goldknopf, demanding that “every Torah student” be allowed to continue studying without disruption.

In a separate statement, Porush declares that he had “met several young men who are being detained for the crime of studying Torah,” calling it “heartbreaking.”

“We need to try to come here more, but I am also busy with discussions in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and I shared with them what was happening in the discussions. We pray that God will help us and save us from this trouble,” he adds.

Ultra-Orthodox lawmakers have paid multiple visits to yeshiva students incarcerated for refusing to enlist in the IDF in recent months.

In August 2025, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Israelis clashed with police outside the Beit Lid military prison following a protest against the detention of yeshiva students organized by leading Haredi rabbis.

Testifying before the Knesset State Control Committee in mid-September, the head of the IDF’s Personnel Directorate dismissed the military’s efforts to crack down on ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers as ineffective.

However, Lt. Col. Avigdor Dickstein, head of the Haredi branch of the IDF’s Personnel Directorate, told the Kan public broadcaster last week, after over 530 Haredim enlisted within one week, that mass issuance of draft orders to Haredim and subsequent enforcement, including imprisonment, has been “unequivocally effective” in boosting enlistment numbers.