Ultra-Orthodox plan massive anti-draft rally at entrance to Jerusalem on Thursday

The ultra-Orthodox community will hold a massive “million man” prayer rally against conscription at the entrance to Jerusalem on Thursday afternoon, senior Haredi spiritual and political leaders announced on Sunday evening, amid a reported intensification of IDF efforts to crack down on draft evasion in the insular religious community.

Police said they were preparing for major traffic disruptions.

The protest was originally slated to be held on Sunday but was delayed, reportedly due to disagreements between the various ultra-Orthodox factions involved. The rally will bring together representatives from the United Torah Judaism party’s Degel HaTorah and Agudat Yisrael factions, as well as the Sephardic Shas and other groups.

The rally is the initiative of, among others, Rabbi Dov Lando, the spiritual leader of Degel HaTorah and one of the senior heads of the non-Hasidic “Lithuanian” branch of Haredi Judaism in Israel.

In a statement on Sunday evening, Shas spokesman Asher Medina announced that following a meeting of the event’s organizing committee, comprised of “eminent Torah sages and Hasidic leaders,” it had been decided that the event would take place at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday. He later told Radio Kol Barama that the demonstration would be a prayer rally.

Last week, Shas gave up its chairmanships of parliamentary committees to protest the lack of a law regulating the conscription of yeshiva students.

The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee was expected to be presented with an updated draft of a bill regulating ultra-Orthodox enlistment on Thursday, although Hebrew media reports indicated that this may be postponed until next week. Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth (Likud) has said his goal is to have the controversial bill passed into law in December.

On Monday morning, the Hamevaser daily, affiliated with Agudat Yisrael’s Shlomei Emunim subfaction, ran a page-one article calling on “the entire faithful Jewish public, in its tens of thousands” to protest efforts “to locate and arrest yeshiva students liable for military conscription.”

‘Wave of arrests’

The protest comes as ultra-Orthodox activists and lawmakers rage against what they describe as a “wave of arrests” of yeshiva students who ignored enlistment orders and are evading military service.

United Torah Judaism chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf has slammed the arrests, claiming that yeshiva students “have been made into criminals — solely because they are Torah learners, all under the auspices of the government of Israel.”

Recent efforts to enforce conscription through arrests have proven ineffective, with the head of the IDF’s Personnel Directorate recently telling lawmakers that a full toolbox is required, including sanctions against draft evaders.

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara appeared to agree, arguing in a letter to Netanyahu this week, that “the government is not taking the measures it can to increase enforcement for obligatory conscription” and that the imposition of additional administrative sanctions is necessary.

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 Israel Defense Forces 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.

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.

For the past year, the Haredi leadership has pushed to pass 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.

In the absence of an exemption law, the IDF and the Attorney General’s Office this summer announced a new plan to bolster enforcement against draft evaders, leading to an increase in the number of arrests and a wave of anti-conscription protests by members of the Haredi community.

In recent months, Haredim have demonstrated outside of the Beit Lid military prison, blocked roads and held prayer gatherings against the draft.

During nationwide protests last week, protest groups put out fliers co-opting hostages’ families’ posters and rhetoric, comparing detained draft dodgers to those taken captive by Hamas on October 7.

One such poster condemning the arrest of yeshiva student Ariel Shamai was emblazoned with a yellow ribbon and read, “Return him to yeshiva now,” accompanied by smaller text: “Until the last hostage.”

Conflicting approaches within Likud

At least two members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party have also indicated that they support the demonstration and are considering taking part.

“It could definitely be a good idea to come, and even if I don’t, my heart is with all the House of Israel who want to stop the persecution,” Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi told Radio Kol Hai on Monday morning.

Likud MK Avichai Boaron sounded a similar note, telling Radio Kol Barama that he was “thinking of joining this rally.”

“There is an alliance between Likud and the ultra-Orthodox public. The Torah is the elixir of our lives, and Torah study is a supreme value,” he said.

In response, fellow Likud MK Dan Illouz tweeted that their party’s voters were “the backbone of the serving public — those who send their children into battle and carry the security of the state on their shoulders.”

“These are the people we were sent to represent in the Knesset. We must not grovel before anyone — not in the face of international pressure, not before a hostile media, not before legal advisers, and not even before coalition partners. We must insist on our national and liberal Zionist path, and not look for ways to support the path of others,” Illouz argued.

Several coalition lawmakers, including Likud’s Tally Gotliv, signed a joint letter last week protesting the arrests of two draft evaders, one of whom was detained during the seven-day Jewish mourning period for his late father, known as shiva. The other was arrested last month while marking his sheva brachot, the seven-day celebratory period following a wedding.

In a statement, Yoaz Hendel’s Reservists party announced that it will hold a pro-conscription counter-demonstration with Israeli flags on Thursday at noon.