Shas’s Deri gives government two months to pass law exempting ultra-Orthodox from IDF

If the status of yeshiva students is not settled by March ‘we’ll go to elections,’ he warns; Shas MK Taieb says his son will go to jail rather than enlist in IDF

Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Ultra-Orthodox extremists protest and clash with police outside a conference honoring Haredi soldiers in Jerusalem, January 28, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Ultra-Orthodox extremists protest and clash with police outside a conference honoring Haredi soldiers in Jerusalem, January 28, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Shas chairman Aryeh Deri threatened on Sunday to bring down the government unless it passes a conscription law exempting yeshiva students from military service.

Speaking with ultra-Orthodox radio station Kol Baramah, Deri gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition two months to anchor the status of Torah students in legislation, warning that if “it’s not regulated, we’ll go to elections.”

“Who would have dreamed that Torah scholars would be called criminals?” he asked, complaining that members of the national-religious community have become “partners in this hate campaign” and arguing that it is they and not him that “will bring about the fall of the right-wing government.”

While not stated explicitly, Deri’s threat likely relates to Shas’s support for the 2025 state budget, which must be passed by the end of March 2025 or the government will automatically fall, triggering early elections.

Deri’s threats are the latest to Netanyahu’s hard-right, religious coalition after far-right former national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir resigned and pulled his Otzma Yehudit party out of the government over the hostage ceasefire deal with Hamas. Fellow far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich is also threatening to resign if Israel does not return to fighting Hamas in Gaza.

Responding to Deri’s ultimatum, Avigdor Liberman, chairman of the opposition Yisrael Beytenu party, tweeted: “There’s no point in waiting two months — we need to go to the polls now.”

The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is currently debating a bill dealing with the issue of ultra-Orthodox enlistment, although chairman Yuli Edelstein (Likud) has warned that he “would only produce a real conscription law that will significantly increase the IDF’s conscription base.”

Defense Minister Israel Katz (left) speaks to Shas chief Aryeh Deri during a vote in the Knesset on December 31, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

The ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ) parties have been heavily pressuring Netanyahu to advance the legislation. UTJ’s Agudat Yisrael faction has also previously threatened to vote against the budget over the draft issue.

The army has previously told the committee that, assuming it is provided with the necessary resources, it will be able to absorb Haredim “without any restrictions” starting in 2026.

However, Defense Minister Katz has argued that this is not practical and has instead pushed for gradually increasing the number of Haredim drafted into the military until it reaches 50 percent of the annual eligible Haredi draft cohort in 2032.

Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon has said that Katz’s plan will not satisfy the IDF’s manpower needs and is therefore incompatible with last summer’s High Court ruling that the government must draft Haredi yeshiva students into the military.

Speaking with Kol Baramah on Tuesday, Shas MK Erez Malul claimed that the committee’s discussions of the bill “have been unserious and full of incitement.”

My son will go to jail and not enlist

In a separate interview, MK Yosef Taieb of the Shas party told the station that despite receiving an enlistment order from the IDF, his son is willing to go to prison rather than serve in the Israeli military.

“My son… received an order and he asked me what to do. I told him to ask the heads of his yeshiva and act according to their instructions,” Taieb told the ultra-Orthodox radio station.

MK Yosef Taieb, chair of the Knesset Education, Culture, and Sports Committee leads a meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on January 25, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

“He sits and studies seriously and loves to learn. We will do what they instruct us to do. If they tell us that what should happen is that he should be arrested, then he will be arrested and learn Torah from prison.”

Taieb, the chair of the Knesset Education, Culture and Sports Committee and a former IDF soldier, came under immediate criticism by both national-religious coalition and opposition MKs.

“I would expect MK Taieb to encourage his son to bear the burden after 15 months of war and not to hear that we have a son of an elected official evading bearing the burden,” declared Yesh Atid MK Moshe Tur-Paz, a member of the Knesset committee currently working on an ultra-Orthodox conscription bill.

“We both know where your heart truly lies. You immigrated to Israel out of Zionism, you served in the IDF and you were a student of Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, who saw serving in the army as a great mitzvah,” Likud MK Dan Illouz tweeted at Taieb.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews protest and clash with police during a demonstration against drafting them into the IDF in Jerusalem, January 28, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

“You yourself are a living example of how it is possible to enter the army as a Haredi and leave as a Haredi without giving up the Torah, but rather adding to it a dimension of action and dedication to the people of Israel. That’s precisely why your statement is so disappointing,” Illouz wrote.

“When you play petty politics, you are slapping the faces of all the scholars who fought bravely in the latest war, including people we both know closely – who fell defending the people and the land, holding a rifle in one hand and the Talmud in the other.”

While some Shas politicians have previously called for drafting Haredim who do not study full-time in yeshiva, the Shas Council of Torah Sages, the spiritual leaders of the ultra-Orthodox party, instructed its followers last summer to ignore all initial draft orders.

Ultra-Orthodox soldiers drafted to the IDF’s new Haredi brigade, known as the Hasmonean Brigade, January 5, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)

“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 at the time.

Speaking with Kol Baramah last June, Rabbi Moshe Maya, a senior member of the council, insisted that it was “forbidden for those who don’t study to go to the army” because they would end up no longer religiously observant.

If not for the Torah students, there would be many more fatalities,” Maya told the radio station at the time. “We pray and shed countless tears for the soldiers, that the hostages return. Our role in the war is to study and study and the Almighty will strike our enemies with softness, weakness and fear.”

Times of Israel Staff contributed to this report.

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