Ultra-Orthodox protest for jailed draft dodgers with display mimicking hostage demo

13 August 2025, 9:16 pm

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Ultra-Orthodox Jews protest outside army recruitment offices in Jerusalem on August 13, 2025. The pictures in the posters, mimicking those of Hamas-held hostages, are of arrested draft-dodgers with text urging their release. (Chaim Goldberg/ Flash90)

Several ultra-Orthodox demonstrators set up a protest installation outside the IDF’s draft center in Jerusalem that mimics the displays set up for the hostages in Gaza.

The demonstrators set up yellow chairs with pictures of Haredi youths jailed for draft evasion. Chairs with photos of the hostages taken to Gaza have been a mainstay of hundreds of demonstrations for their release.

Haredi leaders have announced two separate demonstrations outside the Beit Lid military prison in central Israel tomorrow to protest the arrest and detention of several ultra-Orthodox men who evaded conscription to the Israel Defense Forces, a week after the community declared “war” against the military’s efforts to increase enforcement against draft dodgers.