'There is a way to lighten the burden of service'

Reservists pen letter criticizing IDF chief for failing to draft ultra-Orthodox men

Missive receives support from more than 1,000 reservists, many of whom have completed multiple stints in Gaza or near the Lebanon border

Ultra-Orthodox Jews protest against the draft outside the IDF Recruitment Center in Jerusalem, September 29, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Ultra-Orthodox Jews protest against the draft outside the IDF Recruitment Center in Jerusalem, September 29, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

A group of Israel Defense Force reservists recently sent a letter to Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi criticizing the continued failure to draft members of the ultra-Orthodox community, a move that they said would have helped reduce the large number of days they have been required to serve since the start of the war in Gaza over a year ago.

The letter accused the IDF of having “failed” its reserve soldiers who are frustrated and burnt-out after multiple stints in Gaza, on the northern border, and now in southern Lebanon amid the ongoing ground operation there.

Penned by Maj. (Res.) Davidi Ben Tzion, Maj. (Res.) Yair Saraf, Master Sgt. (Res.) Tzemach David Shluss, and Master Sg. (Res.) Elisaf Peretz, the letter was reported by the Ynet news outlet to have received the backing of more than 1,000 reservists.

The reservists opened by stressing their commitment to fighting for the survival of the Jewish state, which they said they have been doing willingly since the outbreak of war with Hamas on October 7, 2023.

“Service in the IDF and the defense of the homeland are the strongest thread that connects us,” they wrote. “We are all partners in the defense of the people and the country.”

“While we gained extraordinary achievements on the front, we paid heavy prices on the home front,” the letter continued. “Our children have celebrated one more birthday without us, our spouses have been left to carry the burden of home and family without us, students are not starting the school year in an orderly manner for the second time, some of us and our friends have been injured, we bear mental scars, many of us [reservists] were killed in battle.”

Despite all this, the reservists wrote, “We don’t stop and we don’t get tired. We will continue until the goals of the war are achieved.”

Troops of the 646th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade operate in southern Lebanon, in a handout image published October 24, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

Yet, they asserted, the burden of the fight should not be on them alone.

“There is a way to lighten the burden of service. If thousands [of members of the ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, community] had been recruited on October 8, 2023, they could have already finished training to defend the borders, guard the West Bank, listen in on communications, deliver intelligence, bolster the Home Front Command, maneuver in Lebanon, work in observation, and so much more,” they wrote, highlighting the dire need for reinforcements in these areas.

“The fact that you have yet to successfully work to expand the ranks of IDF servicemen is a failure,” they continued. “While on the front we saw planning and cunning, aggressiveness and determination, in the upkeep of the IDF’s combat forces we are experiencing a failure that we are paying for.”

Highlighting what they believe to be the crux of the problem, the reservists pointed out that of the roughly 3,000 ultra-Orthodox men who received a draft summons in recent months, only 100 have reported for service.

“There is no longer a right for any part of the population not to serve based on their beliefs,” the reservists said, complaining that there was a “lack of action and willingness to bring about the long-awaited change.”

“Everyone must serve,” they declared.

Ultra-Orthodox extremists protest against the drafting of Haredi men to the army, outside an IDF recruitment center in Jerusalem, August 21, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

According to Ynet, the missive was also sent to outgoing head of the IDF Personnel Directorate Maj. Gen. Yaniv Asor, as well as his replacement Maj. Gen. Dado Bar Kalifa and other senior officials.

One of the letter’s drafters, Master Sg. (Res.) Elisaf Peretz, told Ynet that he had volunteered for reserve service, even though he was exempt due to the death of his brother Uriel Peretz in Lebanon in 1998 and later that of another brother, Eliraz Peretz, in Gaza in 2010.

He said that he has carried out 300 days of reserve duty since the war began 390 days ago.

“My expectation was that at this stage the army would already have opened frameworks suitable for the Haredim to be drafted,” he said.”If there were 3,000 soldiers defending settlements and at the borders, they would release reservists whose relationships are disintegrating and businesses are collapsing.”

While the letter put the blame on the IDF, the issue first needs to be resolved politically. The government has been undertaking legislative efforts that would largely exempt the ultra-Orthodox community from service.

Peretz told Ynet that the letter sent to the IDF’s top brass was also an appeal to Israel’s ultra-Orthodox communities.

“It’s not a privilege,” he said of exemption. “We need you like we need air to breathe, we need everyone. We cannot accept the reality that a percentage of the population carries the entire burden. I lost two brothers, I have another brother in reserves… it is the greatest privilege in the world to serve. We just need more servicemen.”

An ultra-Orthodox Jew protesting against the drafting of Haredim to the Israeli army holds a sign reading, “We won’t draft to an enemy army,” outside the IDF Recruitment Center at Tel Hashomer, in central Israel, September 2, 2024. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

The letter sent by the reservists comes against the backdrop of bitter disagreements in the Knesset over the issue of Haredi enlistment to the IDF, after the High Court of Justice ruled in June that there was no longer any legal framework allowing the state to refrain from drafting ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students into compulsory service.

The ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party briefly threatened earlier this week to derail government budget talks should the government not prioritize passing a law maintaining the widespread exemption from service for Haredi men.

UTJ backtracked, however, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich pressed the urgency of focusing on a 2025 state budget, as failure to pass it by March 31, 2025, would result in the automatic dissolution of the government.

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 achieving a stable resolution. The Haredi religious and political leadership fiercely resists any effort to draft young men.

Many ultra-Orthodox Jews believe that military service is incompatible with their way of life and fear that those who enlist will be secularized, with anti-enlistment protesters frequently yelling that they “would rather die than enlist.”

Israelis who do serve, however, say the decades-long arrangement of mass exemptions unfairly burdens them, a sentiment that has strengthened since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack and the ensuing war, in which hundreds of soldiers have been killed and over 300,000 citizens called up to reserve duty.

Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.

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