Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox Draft Exemptions Cause Deep Divide
With 300,000 reservists in uniform for more than a year, the IDF needs to tap a new pool of potential draftees, despite resistance from the ultra-Orthodox.
News Analysis
A troublesome question splitting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet is what to do about the draft exemption for ultra-Orthodox men.
Currently, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stands victorious on several fronts, notably Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, with still unresolved enmities in Iran and Yemen further away.
With the IDF’s reservists exhausted from a year of war, they need relief.
Heavily dependent on its reserve soldiers, Israel did its largest call-up in history after the Oct. 7 attack, summoning 287,000 soldiers.
In June 2024, the government raised the IDF’s call-up limit to 350,000. Most are still in uniform and absent from jobs, businesses, and families.
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Netanyahu’s coalition depends on a significant ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, faction. Its other members, though, say they can no longer justify exempting the Haredi from the military draft.
Strictly religious and living in tight-knit communities that avoid mingling too much with the outside world, the Haredi, sometimes colloquially referred to as “the black hats,” represent the religious freedom for Jews that Israel’s very existence represents. They see themselves as living a pro-family lifestyle that the secular world could learn from.
They think the military seeks to strip them of their religious identity, overturn their separation of the sexes, and forcibly incorporate them into the secular world.
But many other Israelis think the costs of their lifestyle have grown too high to bear during a catastrophic war.
Political Split
In June, Israel’s Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling, held that young Haredi men were no longer draft-exempt. The IDF said it would begin sending draft notices, which triggered mass Haredi protests. In November, new Defense Minister Israel Katz approved drafting 7,000 Haredi men.
Leading Haredi figures accused Netanyahu’s Likud party of “declaring war” on their community. Katz responded by issuing 1,125 arrest warrants for Haredi conscripts who had not responded to drafting orders.
His predecessor, Yoav Gallant, said the draft exemption issue was one of three sparking months of tension between him and Netanyahu. The prime…
