Rabbis said to raise $100 million in US for yeshivas facing cuts over IDF draft ruling
Haaretz report claims donations will give schools ‘breathing room’ after court orders state to withhold funds for army-eligible students; IDF draws up plans to recruit 3,000 Haredim
The ultra-Orthodox community in Israel has raised nearly $100 million in the US in response to a High Court of Justice order to cease public funding to yeshivas whose students unlawfully dodge conscription to the Israel Defense Forces, according to a Tuesday report.
According to the report, the ongoing fundraising mission is being led by 94-year-old Rabbi Dov Lando and 87-year-old Moshe Hillel Hirsch, the joint leaders of the non-Hasidic Lithuanian Haredi community, according to the report in the Haaretz daily.
While falling short of long-term needs for yeshivas no longer able to rely on state support, the funds will give the schools “breathing room” as they deal with budgetary constraints already affecting operations, the report said.
In March, the High Court ruled the state could no longer funnel money to yeshivas for some 50,000 students eligible to be drafted into the military, after regulations exempting members of the ultra-Orthodox community engaged in Jewish studies from the mandatory draft expired.
On Tuesday, the court ruled that in the absence of legislation creating new regulations for draft exemptions, the army must begin enlisting recruits from the community, which largely opposes army service on religious grounds.
According to Haaretz, the High Court order on the funding, which went into effect in April, stopped the flow of NIS 270 million ($72 million) for the current year, and will create a NIS 400 million ($106 million) shortfall in 2025.
The situation may be further exacerbated by the possibility that funding will also be halted for daycares for children of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students who are not drafted.
Non-Hasidic communities within the Haredi world — called Lithuanian due to their concentration in that part of Eastern Europe before the Holocaust — include some hardline factions that are among the most vociferous opponents of military service. Hasidic branches of European Judaism and Sephardic or Mizrahi communities that emerged from parts of the Middle East and North Africa also oppose military service to varying degrees.
It was unclear if those other communities would also receive a share of the donated funds, Haaretz reported.
Ultra-Orthodox lawmakers are trying to push through legislation that will extend conscription exemptions for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students, but the efforts face strident opposition in the Knesset, including from within the coalition.
The issue has riven a deep rift within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, leading some ultra-Orthodox politicians to hint they could bring down the government if exemption legislation fails, though others see the threats as a bluff.
“We’ll leave the government and then what? We don’t have a choice but to stay,” one ultra-Orthodox politician was quoted telling Haaretz.
In the meantime, the IDF has begun preparations to conscript ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students in response to the High Court decision, Channel 13 news reported Tuesday.
Special conscription centers
According to the report, the IDF is prepared to draft some 3,000 Haredi men out of 63,000 who are legally required to serve. To assist with the process, the military is preparing male-only conscription centers with specialized kashrut standards.
Nearly all Jewish males and most females are conscripted into the Israel Defense Forces at 18, but the ultra-Orthodox have enjoyed exemptions for decades, leading to complaints among wide swaths of society that they should share in the burden of military service. The war in Gaza, which has stretched the IDF’s manpower, has shined a light on the exemptions, with critics arguing that ultra-Orthodox should be drafted rather than extending enlistment terms for everyone else to address the shortage.
Members of the ultra-Orthodox community, some of whom shun integration with the wider secular world, argue that being forced into the army will require them to compromise on deeply held religious beliefs, including strict proscriptions regarding kosher dietary rules and contact between the sexes.
Signs proclaiming a preference for prison or even death over army service have become a regular feature of protests against attempts to enlist the ultra-Orthodox.
Over the years the army has attempted to address these concerns, creating special units meant to address those issues and facilitate their enlistment, with middling success.
Regarding the praxis of conscripting thousands of citizens who are ideologically opposed to military service, the report said the IDF prefers outreach campaigns encouraging ultra-Orthodox men who may be interested in enlisting to do so. The report added that the IDF does not intend at this point to send military police into yeshivas, as enforced conscription is viewed as a non-starter.
For those ultra-Orthodox men who do enlist, the IDF is considering utilizing them in a “Jordanian border pilot program,” the report said.
The program would see the ultra-Orthodox soldiers spread out in groups across Israel’s longest – and possibly safest – border with rabbis and specialized kashrut at their bases – and without women.
Tuesday’s landmark High Court decision determined for the first time that ultra-Orthodox men are obligated to perform military service, since the previous legislative and administrative arrangements allowing for their blanket exemptions have now expired.
The court ruled that a government decision from June 2023 instructing the army not to begin drafting eligible Haredi men — issued after the law allowing for blanket military service exemptions expired — was illegal, and that the government must therefore actively work to conscript ultra-Orthodox recruits to the IDF.
The justices made clear that they were not telling the state how many Haredi yeshiva students to draft how quickly, and indicated that the process could be gradual, but they warned the government that it must begin now.
The court ruling also permanently barred the state from funding ultra-Orthodox yeshivas for students who are studying in them in lieu of military service, asserting that those funds were bound up in the terms of the IDF service exemptions which now no longer exist.
In response to the decision, the Attorney General’s Office instructed the IDF Tuesday to immediately draft 3,000 ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students beginning July 1.
Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.
