‘Make the earth shake’: Haredi protesters don yellow stars, block roads after draft evader’s arrest

Haredi protesters blocked major streets in central Israel on Wednesday, causing significant traffic disruptions, in a demonstration organized by the extremist ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem Faction against the recent arrest of a draft-evading yeshiva student.

The protest was the first of its kind in several weeks, following a series of similar protests earlier this year. Hundreds were expected to take part after the Jerusalem Faction called on its adherents to “make the earth shake.”

The detained Haredi man at the center of the protest was arrested on Tuesday while exiting a police station after being questioned on an unrelated matter. A military police vehicle was waiting for him outside of the station, Channel 12 reported, and he was transferred from there to a military prison.

As part of their preparations for the demonstration, the Israel Police blocked off major roads in the central Haredi city of Bnei Brak.

A stretch of Jabotinsky Road, which runs from Petah Tikva to Tel Aviv, was shut down in the city, and a portion of Route 4 was blocked off abutting the ultra-Orthodox city from the east.

As the demonstration got underway, protesters were seen sitting and standing in the middle of Route 4, some of them wearing yellow stars with the word “Haredi” emblazoned on them, in a bid to compare their plight to that of victims of the Holocaust.

One man could be seen holding a sign that read, in English and Hebrew, “It was better to die as a Jew in the Holocaust than to spiritually die in IDF camps.”

Cries of “we will die rather than enlist” — a staple chant at the Haredi anti-conscription protests — filled the air, accompanied by the blare of car horns from frustrated drivers hoping to break through the blockade.

A considerable portion of the protesters seen on video were elementary school-aged children, identifiable by the colorful button-up shirts they wear to school, setting them apart from their older counterparts, who generally wear white shirts under black suits.

Haredi men have long received blanket exemptions from military service, and there is a fierce national debate over whether those exemptions should continue amid Israel’s years-long multi-front war. Haredi leaders claim that serving in the military would constitute a secularizing influence and take ultra-Orthodox men away from Torah study.

The exemptions were struck down in court in 2024. Tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox men aged 18 to 24 are currently eligible for military service, but have ignored conscription orders, despite manpower shortages in the army and anger among the general population over inequalities in which parts of society are called to defend the country.

The government attempted to pass a law banning the arrest of Haredi draft evaders last month, but the legislation was quickly frozen by the High Court of Justice, with a decision pending on whether to strike it down entirely.

כביש 4 נחסם לשני הכיוונים בעקבות הפגנת הפלג הירושלמי pic.twitter.com/pL3YcbSAw1

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The police quickly declared the demonstration illegal, and warned protesters blocking traffic at the Geha Interchange on Route 4 that if they did not begin clearing the road, they would be dispersed by force.

South of the interchange, at the entrance to the Tel Aviv suburb of Givat Shmuel, dozens of Haredi men and boys surrounded a Haredi soldier, jeering and chanting “the neighborhood fuck-up.”

Officers intervened to safely escort the soldier away from the crowd, footage and reports from the scene indicated.

According to Channel 12, Tuesday’s arrest particularly angered the ultra-Orthodox community as it was seen as a betrayal of an agreement with the Israel Police to no longer arrest draft evaders who visit police stations to submit a complaint or testimony.

To that end, the outlet reported that MK Moshe Abutbul, of the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox Shas party, has asked police chief Danny Levy to intervene and investigate the arrest.

The arrest, Abutbul reportedly told Levy, “crossed a red line and was a serious violation of the commissioner’s commitment to the Haredi public.

Police have denied violating the terms of the agreement, as the yeshiva student was not there to testify or submit a complaint, but rather because he was summoned for questioning over his suspected involvement in a driver’s license forgery scheme.