Rabbi Asher Deutsch, leader of hardline Jerusalem Faction, dies at 79
The radical ultra-Orthodox group he headed campaigns against drafting community members into the IDF
Rabbi Asher Deutsch, a leader of the radical ultra-Orthodox group Jerusalem Faction, which has led protests against attempts to draft religious men into army service, died Monday. He was 79.
The Jerusalem Faction, an extremist ultra-Orthodox group with some 60,000 members, is considered among the most conservative of Haredi groups. It demonstrates regularly and raucously against the enlistment of Haredi yeshiva students.
Deutsch, who had been unwell for some time, was widely considered the leader of the Jerusalem Faction, though he reportedly opposed hardline tactics adopted by the sect’s more extreme wing headed by Rabbi Zvi Friedman, including violent clashes with police and vows to choose death over serving in the army.
The Bnei Brak native, who also headed the Ponevezh Yeshiva, had spent the last year holding meetings with figures from across the political spectrum in a bid to find a way to legislate the exemptions from the military draft that have been enjoyed by the ultra-Orthodox community, the Kikar Hashabbat website reported.
He reportedly opposed any legislation that would see even some Haredi men drafted.
According to the Kikar Hashabbat outlet, the funeral was expected to set off from Ponevezh Yeshiva towards the Beit Hahayim cemetery in Bnei Brak. Exact times for the ceremony, which is expected to draw many thousands of people, were not immediately published.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox coalition partners have been pushing for the passage of a law regulating military exemptions for yeshiva students and other members of the Haredi community after the High Court ruled in June that the dispensations, in place for decades, were illegal.
Most Israelis outside the community want to scrap the broad Haredi exemptions from IDF service.
The Haredi religious and political leadership fiercely resists any effort to draft young men.
Israelis who do serve say the decades-long arrangement of mass exemptions unfairly burdens them and their families, a sentiment that has intensified since the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught and the ensuing war, in which more than 780 soldiers have been killed and some 300,000 citizens were called up to reserve duty.
The military has said that it currently requires some 10,000 new soldiers — 75 percent of whom would be combat troops — amid the multifront war.
Last month it sent out 1,000 draft orders to Haredi men, the first batch out of a planned 7,000, prompting Haredi demonstrators to block the Route 4 highway in central Israel.
The Times of Israel Community.