Report: Gallant approved 7 new ‘hesder’ yeshivas for ultra-Orthodox soldiers
Decision to launch more Haredi establishments that combine military service with Torah studies comes amid bitter dispute over High Court mandating yeshiva students’ enlistment
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday reportedly approved the establishment of seven new ultra-Orthodox hesder yeshivas, which shorten military service and combine it with Torah studies for observant young men, typically from the religious Zionist community.
Two of the yeshivas were said to be intended for combat soldiers.
According to a Channel 12 news report on Thursday, the decision to establish the relatively rare yeshivas was made following a recommendation by Defense Ministry officials. The Defense Ministry declined to comment on the report.
The reported decision came after a controversial High Court of Justice decision in June ordered the government to begin drafting ultra-Orthodox men for service in the Israel Defense Forces, marking an end to the decades-long practice of granting Haredi men blanket exemptions from army service.
According to the hesder program’s website, over 60 such yeshivas exist today. The majority cater to non-Haredi Orthodox Jews and, according to Channel 12, just seven of them currently cater to the ultra-Orthodox population. Gallant’s reported decision would bring that number to 14 in under a year.
Since the first 1,000 draft orders were sent out to ultra-Orthodox young men in July, protests have erupted outside recruitment centers and many religious leaders have forbidden their disciples from responding to the call-ups.
The dispute over the ultra-Orthodox community serving in the military is one of the most contentious in Israel, with decades of governmental and judicial attempts to settle the issue never reaching a stable resolution.
The Haredi religious and political leadership fiercely resists and protests any effort to draft yeshiva students who are involved in religious study. Many in the community believe that military service is incompatible with their way of life, and fear that those who enlist will be secularized.
Israelis who do serve, however, say the decades-long arrangement of mass exemptions unfairly burdens them. This sentiment has strengthened since the October 7 Hamas attack and the ensuing war — which saw some 287,000 reservists called up in the immediate wake of the onslaught, marking the largest-ever mobilization in Israel’s history.
