‘Studying Torah is what protects us’: Haredi leaders conduct prayers against IDF draft

Leading ultra-Orthodox rabbis affiliated with the Shas and United Torah Judaism parties held special gatherings on Thursday to mark an international day of prayer and fasting in response to recent government efforts to conscript yeshiva students and arrest those who ignore orders to enlist.

At Bnei Brak’s Slobodka Yeshiva, Rabbi Dov Lando, the spiritual leader of UTJ’s Degel Hatorah faction, participated in a prayer service modeled on Yom Kippur Katan, a monthly minor fast day on which worshipers recite prayers usually read on the Jewish Day of Atonement.

Around the rabbi, who stood hunched over a lectern, black-clad worshipers swayed back and forth, their eyes screwed shut in deep focus, as the cantor recited High Holiday prayers appealing for divine mercy in the face of stepped-up government enforcement against draft dodgers.

Nearby stood Rabbi Moshe Hirsch, the dean of Slobodka and a fellow member of Degel Hatorah’s Council of Torah Sages.

Haredi leaders say military service is a threat to their way of life and would keep ultra-Orthodox men from studying Torah as well as threaten them with secularization. Some 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged 18-24 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 amid the ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza and other military challenges.

Last summer, the High Court of Justice ruled that longstanding mass exemptions for these yeshiva students were illegal. Since then, the IDF has significantly stepped up its efforts to recruit the eligible Haredi men, sending out 54,000 conscription orders in July alone, leading the Haredi community to declare “war” against the move.

As part of their campaign against conscription, Lando and other senior rabbis this week asked Haredim worldwide to take part in an international day of prayer and fasting, a call which was taken up by Agudath Israel of America’s Council of Torah Sages.

Rav Dov Lando and yeshiva students at Slobodka in Bnei Brak say Yom Kippur prayers to appeal for the end of conscription of Haredi yeshiva students pic.twitter.com/yYdert39tu

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According to Haredi newspaper HaMevaser, prayer gatherings were set to be held in Antwerp, London, Paris, New York, Chicago, Miami and elsewhere over the course of the day.

Chatting with The Times of Israel outside the Slobodka Yeshiva, Lando’s driver joked that the Haredi community’s rabbinic leadership should issue a pulsa denura curse against those behind efforts to enlist Haredim — a kabbalistic death curse that translates to “lashes of fire” in Aramaic.

Asked if the rabbi supported such action, the driver replied “God forbid,” and then jokingly asked if it was okay, however, to pray that God deal with such people.

The driver’s comment came after the arrest of a 36-year-old man suspected of making threats on the life of Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara on Wednesday, after he allegedly asked former chief rabbi Yitzhak Yosef for halachic approval to kill her.

Addressing yeshiva students at a private event at another venue following the prayers, Lando declared that only Torah study protects Israel and that learning is the greatest thing a Jew can do.

“Studying the Torah is what protects us,” he declared. “The great privilege of studying the Torah is that it elevates and purifies a person…and it protects the people of Israel.

“That is the essence of the people of Israel because it is our life and the length of our days,” he said, referencing a Biblical verse. “The pure Torah that restores the soul.”

He then shook hands with Tomer Sapayev, a draft evader who was recently released from military prison. Holding Sapayev’s hand, Lando began dancing with him and others in the room to a song about plots by the enemies of the Jews coming to naught.

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

Following Rabbi Lando’s service, thousands of members of the Gur Hasidic sect began arriving in the southern city of Arad for their own prayer rally. Members of an extremist Haredi group in Ramat Bet Shemesh were also expected to stage a protest.

Earlier in the day, former chief Sephardic rabbi and current Shas party spiritual leader Yitzhak Yosef also addressed a gathering of Haredim billed as aiming to provide ideological encouragement for “the holy and mighty yeshiva students in the face of the conscription decrees.” While he did not directly address the issue of enlistment, Yosef also said that those who toil in the Torah were praiseworthy.

The Bnei Brak religious council, a taxpayer-funded government body, was listed as one of the backers of Rabbi Yosef’s event, during which hundreds of Haredim listened to religious lectures that avoided direct mention of the conscription issue.

Rabbi David Stav, chairman of the national religious Tzohar rabbinical organization, slammed Haredi leaders for holding a day of prayer and fasting against conscription while tens of thousands of reservists are preparing to once again go into battle in Gaza.

“It is truly shocking to witness how while hundreds of thousands of families are being separated from [loved ones] … called back into war in Gaza, a segment of the population is completely absolving itself of their social responsibility,” the rabbi told The Times of Israel in a statement.

“They are clearly transgressing the commandment prohibiting standing by while the blood of their brothers and sisters is being spilled; and to do so while claiming to be acting in the name of the Torah is nothing short of a despicable disgrace of God’s name.”