‘War on Torah students’: Haredi MKs condemn ‘despicable arrests’ of draft dodgers
Hardline Jerusalem faction reports recent ‘wave of arrests’; MK Goldknopf claims yeshiva students ‘have been made into criminals solely because they study Torah’
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 activists and lawmakers on Wednesday raged against what they described as a “wave of arrests” by the IDF of yeshiva students who ignored enlistment orders and are evading military service, framing the military’s activities as “religious persecution” aimed at criminalizing Torah scholars.
According to the hardline Jerusalem Faction, the IDF resumed enforcement operations last Friday, raiding a number of homes in Jerusalem, the West Bank community of Adam, Ramat Gan, and Givatayim.
Among those the group listed as arrested was Ariel Rosenzweig, a student at the Neve Eretz Yeshiva who was detained during the seven-day mourning period for his late father. The Jerusalem Faction later announced that Rosenzweig had been released from custody.
United Torah Judaism chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf 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.”
“Following the instructions of our revered sages and leading rabbis of Israel, may they live long, we have withdrawn from the government and the coalition, and we are acting in every possible way to regulate the status of Torah learners — upon whom the world depends,” he declared.
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.
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 a statement on Wednesday, UTJ lawmaker Yisrael Eichler called the arrests “an unforgivable crime” and “cruel persecution,” insisting that yeshiva students are “not criminals but righteous individuals.”
“We are constantly working with the relevant authorities to end the arrests. May God help us to be saved from the enemies of Torah,” he added.
MK Meir Porush, who established a draft evasion hotline while serving as a cabinet minister prior to his party’s exit from the coalition this summer, framed the arrests as part of a campaign of “religious persecution” being led by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.
“Anyone who arrests yeshiva students harms the people of Israel and creates a rift in the nation in a way that endangers Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel,” he said, condemning Rosenzweig’s arrest and calling on the judicial and military authorities to “come to your senses immediately.”
Testifying before the Knesset State Control Committee in mid-September, the head of the IDF’s Personnel Directorate dismissed these efforts to crack down on ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers as ineffective.
According to Maj. Gen. Dado Bar Kalifa, a recent wave of arrests — including dozens of yeshiva students on their way to Uman for the annual Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage — had failed to boost enlistment numbers “because we have loopholes the size of gates in a fence.”
“There are psychiatrists and an army of lawyers who arrange what is called ‘the exemption,’” Bar Kalifa complained. “You’ve invested all your resources but delivered nothing.”
UTJ’s Degel HaTorah faction released a statement calling “the arrest of yeshiva students for the crime of Torah study… a worrying escalation,” and accusing the attorney general of having “declared war on Torah scholars in the Holy Land” in order to “sabotage” the government’s bill to regulate the status of yeshiva students.
The IDF declined to comment when contacted by The Times of Israel.
On Tuesday evening, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth announced that a revised draft of the government’s long-delayed bill to regulate military conscription for the ultra-Orthodox community would be presented to lawmakers next week, with the goal of sending it to the plenum for its final two readings in December.
Bismuth was appointed chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in August after both of the coalition’s ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, left the government to protest its failure to advance the long-stalled legislation, which critics have derided as an “evasion bill.” Despite bolting the government, Shas did not follow UTJ out of the coalition.
Opposition MKs have criticized Bismuth’s plans for the legislation, claiming that they are intended solely to pave the way for Shas’s return. Shas did not release a statement regarding the arrests.
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