The Haredi draft exemption is tearing Israel apart
As Israelis mark Oct. 7 anniversary, Haredi still won’t serve
Israeli police officers clash with Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men during an Ultra-Orthodox protest against army draft on July 16, 2024 in Bnei Brak, Israel. Photo by Itai Ron / Middle East Images / Middle East Images via AFP
Columnist Dan Perry October 15, 2024
To understand the depths of anger coursing through Israeli society, consider the following: On Oct. 7, 2024, as many Israelis were engaged in an excruciating commemoration of a year of unprecedented agony and sacrifice, leading Haredi rabbis and yeshiva students held a major “emergency conference” on continued avoidance of military service for the sector.
“While there are wars on two or three or four fronts,” Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch told the hundreds of assembled, “there is a special obligation on yeshiva students to strengthen themselves in the areas of a yeshiva student — his Torah, his prayer, his kindness and his morals. He who is curious about the Torah finds no interest in the affairs of the world.”
Driven by this worldview, the Haredi parties that are critical to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition have squeezed a promise out of him to pass a law formalizing the de facto draft exemptions for yeshiva students. These exemptions keep them in yeshivas, and not working, until they are too old — or have families too large — to serve.
If Netanyahu’s law passes, it is difficult to overstate the eruption of outrage that will follow – from the very sectors that are defending the country and are responsible for its wealth. They will view it as a betrayal of the soldiers who put their lives on the line, a betrayal of the families who have lost loved ones in defense of the country, and a betrayal of the millions of Israelis who pay their taxes, serve their time, and contribute to the economy.
The Haredi parties are currently threatening to hold up the 2025 state budget – without passage of which the government falls – unless the law passes by the end of the year.
Netanyahu has reportedly promised them moves in this direction before the end of October, despite the objections of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Ensuring passage of the law is believed to be at the center of Netanyahu’s reported machinations to replace Gallant, and his deal two weeks ago to shore up his rickety coalition by inducing four members of the opposition to join.
Let’s put aside the howling unfairness inherent in Haredim not bearing the same risks as other Israelis. Let’s put aside even the fact that given the multiple fronts Hirsch seems aware of (but wishes his pupils to ignore), the military is straining under the weight of the many tasks at hand, and tens of thousands of reserve soldiers have been called up to reserves, with a hugh proportion of them putting in over 200 days of reserve duty over the past year – devastating to family life and careers.
It is conceivable that Israelis would put up with this edifice of outrage if the situation were static. But as Haredi families have about seven children each on average – triple the rest of society – the group’s proportion of the population doubles every 25 years or so. Haredi exemptions, in a few years, will apply to a quarter of the potential draftees.
What began, under Israel’s first leader David Ben-Gurion, as a symbolic exemption for 400 Torah sages, was extended by Menachem Begin to all yeshiva students. After the 1977 elections he needed the then-small Haredi parties for his coalition, the first not to be led by a version of Israel’s center-left labor movement. Thus was born the “right-religious bloc” – which is the Netanyahu coalition today. But the Haredi parties now have almost 20 of the 120 seats – and growing all the time.
“Our best sons and daughters are now fighting deep in enemy territory in Gaza and Lebanon, risking their lives,” said Yair Golan, the current head of the Labor Party, now renamed the “Democrats.” “Are the lives of our children worth less? For them the answer is yes”
What exactly to do is an open question. If the Haredi boys would all receive draft notices and refuse, equality would demand that tens of thousands of them be thrown in jail. For the military to meet all their likely demands for strict observance on bases – and no women soldiers in their vicinity – would also be impossible. It is complex, and would require some compromisesÚ Haredi units, a gradual approach perhaps.
But the proposed law would essentially bury the issue and continue the inequality.
All of this is not just a moral outrage—it is an economic and social time bomb. There is growing doubt among economic experts that Israel can continue to support the Haredi community under the current arrangement.
The situation is made worse by the fact that Haredi men are not only avoiding military service but are also rejecting the secular education necessary for them to participate fully in the modern workforce. A key rabbinical crusade is to continue the policy, in most of the sector’s schools, of denying high school boys math, science and English studies that would make them employable in good jobs in Israel’s high-tech economy, which could lure them outside the Haredi world.
So the Haredi participation in the workforce remains dismally low. About half of Haredi men do not work, and those who do often take low-paying jobs, funded by the state, in the bloated “religious services” sector. The draft arrangement incentivizes spending long years in religious study to avoid the military. Via child subsidies the state enables the group’s members to continue to have huge families – albeit mired in poverty.
Will Israelis share a common future?
Ultimately, this debate is not just about defense and the economy but whether Israel might forge a shared identity, a common experience that unites Israelis across religious, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines. The IDF is often referred to as the “melting pot” of Israel, where soldiers from all backgrounds serve side by side, bound by the common goal of defending their country. The Haredi community actively rejects this, for fears that secular life would appeal to their youth.
Passage of this law will deepen Israel’s internal conflicts. But it is also a betrayal of the Haredi community itself. By continuing to shield young men from military service and secular education, the Haredi leadership is ensuring that their community remains isolated and economically dependent.
It’s not sustainable, and yet another case of Netanyahu being willing to do almost anything to survive politically. If this law is passed, it will only deepen the divisions within Israeli society, setting the stage for an explosion. Israel would be headed into uncharted and dangerous waters.
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