Study finds many yeshiva students working illegally in violation of IDF exemptions
Israel Democracy Institute researcher Gabriel Gordon argues new data shows ultra-Orthodox don’t believe their own rhetoric about importance of learning Torah full-time
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"
At least 22 percent of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students under the age of 26 are illegally employed, in violation of the terms of their exemption from military service, a new study has found, appearing to undercut the community’s argument that its members do not enlist due to their total immersion in Torah study.
Until recently, ultra-Orthodox men of military age were able to avoid conscription by enrolling in yeshivas for Torah study and obtaining repeated one-year service deferrals until they reach the age of military exemption. Last month, the High Court of Justice ruled that the military must draft Haredi men, though the scope of the planned enlistment is still being debated. Summonses may start being sent as early as next week.
In order to receive exemptions, Haredi students have been required to sign a pledge not to work until the age of 22, after which married students are allowed to enter the workforce outside of yeshiva study hours.
However, after reviewing and cross-referencing government records, including tax authority databases, the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem-based think tank, found that a significant number of those currently exempt from service “fail to comply with the commitment they signed as a condition for receiving the exemption.”
A blatant violation of the law
According to the report, more than a third of students in Haredi yeshivas aged 18-25 have participated in the workforce, while 22% have worked illegally, a number that IDI researcher Gabriel Gordon believes is likely an underestimation “because this is only reported work.”
Gordon found that the percentage of yeshiva students who reported their income to the tax authority at least once during the year stood at 21% at age 18, rising to 36% at age 21 and 45% at age 25.
Because the data is not complete and leaves room for some interpretation, Gordon presented two estimates on the percentage of full-time employment based on the information available to him. Both estimates assume minimum wages, while the first estimate assumes a growth in wages due to seniority.
In the first, the percentage of full-time employment rate among those in the workforce is 62% among yeshiva students aged 23, 69% among those aged 24, and 72% among those aged 25; and in the second it stood at 59% among those aged 23, 62% among those aged 24, and 65% among those aged 25.
This “blatant violation of the law” indicates that rhetoric and reality do not match up, Gordon told The Times of Israel, arguing that “a lot of these people in yeshiva are not, as the rabbis tell it, immersed in Torah 24/7.”
“I guess they don’t believe in what they say if these are their actions. They are supposed to be in yeshivas all day and all night learning,” he asserted.
“That is the common idea, that they are basically telling us that the Jewish world rests on these people learning day and night — and the data points out that a lot of these people are not abiding by this. These actions speak volumes.”
Ideological objections
Many ultra-Orthodox Jews believe that military service is incompatible with their way of life, and fear that those who enlist will be secularized.
In pushing back against mandatory service, Haredi leaders and politicians have long equated the benefit to Israel of Torah study with that of serving in the armed forces, insisting that those studying full-time must not be drafted because they provide critical spiritual protection to the country.
However, the High Court of Justice ruled last month that there is no legal basis for excluding Haredi men from the military draft, leading the Attorney General’s Office to instruct the Israel Defense Forces to immediately draft 3,000 Haredi young men.
The IDF — which has said it will begin sending initial draft orders to members of the Haredi community on Sunday — appears to be looking at the possibility of starting the process with those Haredim who, while supposedly studying in yeshiva, are actually working and receiving a salary.
The Finance Ministry has warned that this could damage efforts to integrate this group of the population into the labor market.
Speaking with the ultra-Orthodox Kikar HaShabbat news site this week, Labor Minister Yoav Ben Tzur, a member of the Haredi Shas party, insisted that according to the National Insurance Institute, only 10% of yeshiva students ages 18-26 are reported to have worked — a figure which Gordon called “complete nonsense.”
While some ultra-Orthodox politicians have indicated that they could see enlisting members of their community not enrolled in full-time Torah study as an acceptable compromise, senior Haredi rabbis have resisted any accommodation following the High Court ruling.
Rabbi Moshe Maya, a senior member of Shas’s leading Council of Torah Sages, has declared that it is “forbidden [even] for those who don’t study to go to the army,” while senior rabbis affiliated with the United Torah Judaism party have forbidden Haredim to obey enlistment orders.
In a statement to the press on Wednesday afternoon, a Shas spokesman shared headlines from party mouthpiece Haderech quoting leading rabbinic figures calling on Haredi men not to comply with enlistment orders.
The rabbis have “ordered emphatically that as of now, when a new law regulating the status of yeshiva members has not yet been settled, one should not respond to any draft order or summons, not even to the initial order, and therefore should not report to the draft offices at all,” the spokesman said.
Legislative pushback
The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is currently debating legislation that would set the age of exemption from mandatory service for Haredi yeshiva students at 21, down from the current 26, while “very slowly” increasing the rate of ultra-Orthodox enlistment.
In the wake of the IDF’s announcement that it will begin sending out enlistment orders to Haredim on Sunday, committee chairman Yuli Edelstein (Likud) accused the military Wednesday of having “no plan and no numbers” regarding those being called up.
His comments came after IDF representatives told the committee on Wednesday that they would have to wait for data on how many orders were going out to become available.
“I expect the IDF representatives to come with a detailed plan and present exact numbers,” Edelstein declared.
