Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Make a matched gift and support Jewish journalism. DONATE NOW
Fast Forward

Haredim Protest Jailing of Yeshiva Student Refusing IDF Draft

Hundreds of haredi Orthodox protesters took part in a second day of demonstrations against the jailing of a yeshiva student who refused to present himself at an IDF enlistment center.

The yeshiva student was imprisoned on Sunday for two weeks.

During Thursday’s demonstrations in Kikar HaShabbat in Jerusalem, protesters set trash bins alight and threw stones at police, Haredi protesters demonstrated peacefully Wednesday in front of the Israel Defense Forces’ Prison 6.

The jailed yeshiva student is a follower of Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, who has instructed his students not to appear at induction centers after receiving their call up notices.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon in July deferred the draft orders for hundreds of haredi Orthodox yeshiva students. The students had been scheduled to be inducted into the Israel Defense Forces in August through December following the cancellation of the Tal Law, which had allowed haredi men to defer army service indefinitely.

Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in February 2012 that the Tal Law was unconstitutional.

It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!

This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions. 

We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.

As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday! 

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.