Senior ultra-Orthodox rabbi: Those enforcing Haredi draft are fighting against God

Addressing a gathering in honor of two draft evaders released from military prison on Sunday evening, the spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Degel HaTorah party claimed that those enforcing the conscription of Haredi men into the military are fighting against God and the Torah.

“When a yeshiva student is placed in prison solely because he wishes to study Torah, it is not he who is in prison! The Torah itself, God forbid, is in prison,” Rabbi Dov Lando declared during a celebration in honor of yeshiva students Yitzhak Revivo and Yair Saadeh.

“Let everyone who is complicit in this crime of casting the holy Torah, the Torah of God, behind bars know this: you are not fighting flesh and blood; you are fighting the Torah and the one who gave it, blessed be his name,” the 95-year old rabbi added.

Lando, the chairman of Degel HaTorah’s ruling Council of Torah Sages and one of the most prominent rabbinic leaders of the so-called “Lithuanian” stream of ultra-Orthodoxy, is a steadfast opponent of Haredi conscription to the Israel Defense Forces. He accused Israel of declaring “war” on yeshiva students via his Yated Neeman mouthpiece in August after the IDF began arresting draft evaders.

He has also ordered yeshiva students to ignore call-up orders, prompting Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman to file a criminal complaint against him last May.

According to Lando, yeshiva students are forbidden from speaking with military representatives. Those who have been declared draft dodgers and are liable to arrest must avoid any contact with the authorities, and those looking to travel abroad must first clarify their status with the Vaad HaYeshivot (Yeshiva Committee) — the Haredi community’s primary vehicle for coordination between ultra-Orthodox yeshivas and the Defense Ministry in matters of service deferments.

A Times of Israel investigation published last year found that the committee, on whose board Lando sits, has been advising yeshiva students who contact its advice line to “not report under any circumstances and do not cooperate” with the authorities.

Under Israeli law, someone inciting others to evade service during wartime is liable to a prison term of 15 years.

For the past year and a half, the Haredi leadership has pushed for a law keeping its constituency out of the IDF, after the High Court ruled that decades-long blanket exemptions from army duty traditionally afforded to full-time Haredi yeshiva students were illegal.

Some 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged between 18 and 24 are currently believed to be eligible for military service, but have not enlisted. The IDF has said it urgently needs 12,000 recruits due to the strain on standing and reserve forces caused by the war against Hamas in Gaza and other military challenges.

Addressing the gathering in honor of Revivo and Saadeh on Sunday, Lando stated that “we are making every effort—through the representatives [in the Knesset] and in other ways—so that, God forbid, yeshiva students should not be disturbed in their Torah study, without exception.”

Lando’s Degel HaTorah, one of two factions comprising the larger United Torah Judaism party, has said it supports the coalition’s draft exemption bill, which proposes continued military service exemptions to full-time yeshiva students while ostensibly increasing conscription among graduates of Haredi educational institutions by setting quotas.

Both Degel HaTorah and fellow ultra-Orthodox party Shas have been pushing hard to pass the exemption bill in the coming weeks, with a faction representative telling the Ynet news site last week that “if there is no progress” on the enlistment bill, “we will not vote in favor of the budget…and if that means the government falls, then let the government fall.”

Among other issues, opposition lawmakers have objected to the fact that the controversial legislation calls to establish a sanctions exceptions committee that would include a representative of Lando’s Yeshiva Committee.

“Rabbi Lando’s remarks are, unfortunately, completely disconnected from the extremely harsh reality in which the State of Israel and Israeli society have found themselves since October 7,” Yisrael Beytenu MK Evgeny Sova said on Monday.

“The Haredi leadership is also detached from many processes taking place within the community and, in practice, threatens many citizens who want to integrate into society and contribute to the country’s economy and security. That is the difference between Zionism and evasion.”

Yesh Atid MK Moshe Tur-Paz, a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, which is debating the exemption bill, also slammed Lando, describing his remarks as “inappropriate for someone who sat in a yeshiva.”

Rav Lando dancing with a draft dodger while yeshiva students sing a song about the plots of the Jews’ enemies coming to naught pic.twitter.com/C7lcgtmkik

— Sam Sokol (@SamuelSokol) August 21, 2025

“The fact that he sees a contradiction between Torah study and military service is, in itself, a disgrace,” Tur-Paz told The Times of Israel. “Our Torah speaks about going out to war in a Milchemet Mitzvah (obligatory war). Rabbi Akiva — the greatest head of a yeshiva in history — sent 24,000 students to fight in the war of Shimon bar Kokhba.”

Sunday was not the first time that Lando had celebrated draft dodgers, having been photographed dancing with a recently released yeshiva student in Bnei Brak last August and having headlined an anti-conscription demonstration outside the Beit Lid military prison.