Jonathan, a young Israeli who spent over a year fighting in Gaza, first as an enlisted soldier and then as a reservist, says he feels stung by a double sense of betrayal.
Firstly, that his ultra-Orthodox fellow citizens are largely exempt from military service required of all Jewish Israelis once they turn 18. And secondly, because the government, which relies on support from religious parties, is seeking to enshrine what he perceives as a fundamentally unfair practice into law.
“Politicians driven by coalition issues even in the midst of a war are trying to push through legislation that would abandon us,” says Jonathan, who preferred to only be identified by his first name for his privacy. He complains that the Haredim, ultra-Orthodox Jews, get monthly government stipends to support them during religious study and are exempt from service, “while people my age are put into an endless loop of reserve duty.”
Why We Wrote This
In Israel, the shared burden of military service in “the people’s army” is a consensus value, and an exemption granted the ultra-Orthodox has long rankled. Amid the mounting costs of war in Gaza, moves to codify the exemption have fanned resentments.
Almost two years into the war in Gaza, the longest in Israel’s history, and with the army saying it has a shortage of soldiers, resentments over the refusal by Haredim to serve in the Israeli army have boiled over. A Supreme Court ruling that struck down longstanding military exemptions has gone mostly ignored by ultra-Orthodox rabbis and their followers, who believe the state has declared “war” on their community.
Expanding the draft is perhaps the one issue that unites non-Haredi Israelis from across the political spectrum, posing one of the biggest threats to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remaining in power.
Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza City, which launched overnight Tuesday involving tens of thousands of soldiers, has again put a spotlight on the lopsidedness of who serves and who doesn’t in “the people’s army.” It includes a mass call-up of reservists, many of whom have already served hundreds of days since the war began.
“For years, there’s been high support in non-Haredi public opinion for ultra-Orthodox conscription, but now it’s become an existential question,” says Gilad Malach, an expert on Haredim at The Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem-based think tank.
Burden of service
More than 900 Israeli soldiers have been killed in battle since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel’s southern border that sparked the war. Thousands have been wounded, and Israel is witnessing a rising toll of suicides and soldiers receiving treatment for their mental health.
Reservists who in some cases have served more than 16 months since the war began are increasingly telling their commanders they can’t report for additional call-ups. The army informed lawmakers it needs 12,000 additional recruits to meet the new level of demand.
Israelis who are not ultra-Orthodox are asking, “How will our kids serve in the army and endanger their lives and your kids won’t?” Dr. Malach says.
“It’s a unique subject … that bridges between populations that don’t agree on much of anything, creating a coalition between modern Orthodox and secular, right and left,” he says.
The origins of the military exemption for the Haredim date back to the early years of the state, when the ultra-Orthodox community only had a small number of young men. The decision to allow them a life of study was an attempt to rehabilitate the world of Jewish text learning that was all but destroyed during the Holocaust.
Today, the Haredim, who live segregated in their own neighborhoods and even cities, are the fastest growing part of Israeli society, over 13% of the population. Eighteen percent of them – some 80,000 young men – are of conscription age. Because their spiritual leaders tell them not to watch television or use the internet, most Haredim are largely cut off from popular Israeli culture and hold deeply conservative beliefs that set them apart from the rest of society.
Two different languages
The Oct. 7 attack, the deadliest in Israeli history, hit differently for the Haredim. While many Israelis have a first- or second-degree connection to someone killed or kidnapped, the Haredim do not.
“We are speaking in effect different languages when it comes to seeing what we view as a threat,” says Dr. Malach. “Most Jewish Israelis will say it is Hamas, but most Haredim say the state is a threat to their way of life.”
Moshe Tur-Paz, a lieutenant colonel in the reserves and a centrist lawmaker on the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, says the security reality has so fundamentally changed since Oct. 7 that a new, future government will have to enforce conscription.
In June 2023, shortly before the war, the last draft exemption law for Haredi military service expired. A year later, in a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court said there were no legal grounds to continue the exemptions and that the army should begin drafting ultra-Orthodox conscripts. But in the last draft year, in which 24,000 draft notices were sent to Haredim, only some 400 actually enlisted, according to army data. Haredi rabbis and politicians have told their young men not to comply.
“If you look realistically, we are heading toward many years of fighting, and as I see it the ultra-Orthodox have no way to justify … claiming [military service] impedes on their way of life,” says Mr. Tur-Paz. “I think there is very wide consensus in Israel that things need to change rapidly.”
Mr. Tur-Paz is himself modern Orthodox, a segment of the population that not only serves in the army, but is disproportionately represented in its officer ranks.
“If 1 out of 4 Jewish 12th graders are not serving in the army, this is becoming a real problem for Jewish existence” in Israel, he says.
Ultra-Orthodox perspective
Haredi politicians have been leading the fight to pass a law that would legalize the draft exemptions. Two parties even left Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition after it was unable to push through such legislation.
Former ultra-Orthodox politician Yitzhak Ze’ev Pindrus says his community believes its conscription-age youth should be engaged in Torah study for good reason.
“The Jewish nation remained a nation for 3,500 years not through having a state, but through tradition,” and embedded in that tradition is Torah study, he says.
Referring to authorities’ attempts to enforce the draft by arresting young Haredi men trying to travel abroad or blocking them from getting drivers’ licenses, Mr. Pindrus says, “of course the Haredi community feels attacked by the country.”
To address Haredi concerns that military service will pull young men away from the community, the army has created its first all-Haredi brigade, tailored to maintain a strict level of observance of Jewish law. It’s a bid to show that is indeed possible to be both a soldier and Haredi.
“But the Haredi leaders are scared, they fear us even speaking with secular Israelis in the street. They fear losing control of their young people as a society that fears any kind of change,” says Yanki Farber, a Haredi who works for an ultra-Orthodox news site, Behadrei Haredim. He is among the small but gradually growing number of Haredim who have served, and are pushing against internal opposition toward serving.
“I was in the army and did reserve duty for the last 20 years, and it has not impaired my religious experience,” he says.
