Shas rabbis tell followers to ignore draft orders as IDF preps for Haredi enlistment
In recording, former Sephardic chief rabbi says even ultra-Orthodox ‘deadbeats’ should be exempt from mandatory military service

The Shas Council of Torah Sages, the spiritual leaders of the ultra-Orthodox party, on Wednesday instructed its followers to ignore the military’s initial draft orders to members of the Haredi community.
The Israel Defense Forces announced on Tuesday that it would begin to send out the orders this Sunday, though the government appeared no closer to legislation on the issue following a bombshell High Court ruling last month.
“As of now, while no legislation has been agreed on the status of the yeshiva students, do not answer any draft orders including initial orders and you should not show up at draft centers,” the council wrote.
These instructions echoed calls from leading Sephardi and Ashkenazi rabbis who told their followers last week to ignore call-up orders.
The initial draft orders are the first stage in the screening and evaluation process that the army carries out for new recruits, ahead of enlistment in the military in the coming year.
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 mainstream yeshiva students who are actually involved in religious study.

In a recording published by Kan on Tuesday, former Sephardi chief rabbi Yitzhak Yosef could be heard saying that all ultra-Orthodox men should be exempt from military service, even those not engaged in full-time study at a yeshiva.
“All learned persons [sons of Torah] are exempt from going to the army, even if they’re deadbeats and don’t study,” he said. “There are female soldiers, officers and profanity. There are terrible things there — don’t go there, period.”
Past laws afforded Haredi men exemption from military service so that they could study full-time in yeshiva, however, the vast majority do not enlist even if they do not study.
Many ultra-Orthodox Jews believe that military service is incompatible with their way of life, and fear that those who enlist will be secularized. Many 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 attack and the ensuing war, in which more than 680 soldiers have been killed and hundreds of thousands of citizens called up to reserve duty.
Last month, the High Court ruled that there was no longer any legal framework allowing the state to refrain from drafting Haredi yeshiva students into military service, and the attorney general ordered the government to immediately begin the process of conscription for 3,000 such men — the number the military has said it is able to process at this preliminary stage.
The current government, which includes the Shas and United Torah Judaism ultra-Orthodox parties, has vowed to pass legislation that would slowly increase Haredi enlistment, but major gaps remain between the desires of the Haredi factions and of many senior lawmakers in the ruling Likud party.
Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.