Ultra-orthodox Jews protest revised legislation that will extend conscription to include the ultra-orthodox

Amos Harel and Yaniv Kubovich – Haaretz July 11, 2024

There is a big gap between the army’s immediate needs, as presented to political leaders amid the severe erosion in manpower due to the prolonged war in Gaza and with Hezbollah, and the pace at which the IDF plans to recruit young ultra-Orthodox men. The General Staff described the need to create additional brigades of conscript soldiers, given the losses sustained since the October 7 massacre. This includes 681 fatalities and over 4,100 hospitalized wounded men, with a few thousand additional soldiers suffering from post-traumatic responses to the war. The drafting of Haredi men, following the collapse of the law enabling their exemption and demands by the High Court of Justice to finally resolve this crisis, is expected to proceed at a slower pace.

Ever since the judges handed down their ruling several weeks ago, many estimates have been floated regarding the scope of call-up notices the army will send to young Haredi men. However, the goal has already been laid out in discussions between the defense minister, the chief of staff and senior members of the IDF’s Manpower Directorate. It is very modest. The IDF wishes to draft a further 3,000 soldiers between this July and next July, in addition to the 1,800 it had already planned on drafting (based on a very lenient definition of who is a Haredi). A similar number is planned for the following cohort of draftees.

In other words, 9,600 men will be inducted in two annual cohorts, constituting one third of the Haredi men turning 18 over that period. In order to attain these numbers, the army will send more call-up notices (possibly several thousand more per year), based on the assumption that only some of these men will actually be drafted. In any case, this is far fewer than the 63,000 Haredi men who are now at the relevant conscription age ranging from 18 to 26.

This is a very restricted interpretation of the High Court ruling, which jurists and retired generals saw as legitimizing the sending of draft notices to all Haredi men of suitable age. Senior defense establishment members, including hundreds of veterans of the IDF, the Shin Bet and Mossad, view the plan shaping up as laughable compared to the army’s actual needs. The General Staff says, in contrast, that they have received legal briefs from state prosecutors and the Military Advocate General’s office, which conform to the move now shaping up.

The army’s planned drive will be directed at a specific population – mainly ultra-Orthodox men who are registered in yeshivas but who in fact are not really engaged in studies, and are employed unofficially without paying taxes. Most of these people are relatively young. In conversations held in recent months between senior IDF officers and Haredi rabbis, some rabbis recognized that a change was necessary, and that men not really studying at a yeshiva are the ones who should be drafted. For some of these rabbis, it is important to retain 30 percent of young Haredi men as authentic students, with a compromise possible regarding the others, as long as the army promises that anyone enlisting as a Haredi man will receive all the conditions required for maintaining his faith.

The gradual softening in the position of some of these rabbis is explained by two major trends: the impact of the war and the emergence of the IDF’s needs on one hand, and the risk that the state will have to stop funding yeshivas in which pupils dodge the draft, based on the court’s ruling. On the other hand, there are rabbis and Haredi functionaries who have vowed to fight the entire move, using any means they can. In the IDF, opinions are divided regarding the chances of success, with great concerns that the army will be dragged deep into the political arena, having to deal with a refusal to serve and with massive draft dodging by young Haredi men.

The IDF program envisions, as a first stage, the building of three new infantry battalions based on new Haredi conscripts. These battalions will have a joint command, but will not constitute a brigade acting together in the field. It may be posted to specific sectors securing a particular border, thereby releasing many reserve battalions from duty each year. The process will be gradual and very slow. Right now, there is talk of drafting two new companies in November. In order to maintain the religious aspect of their service, a yeshiva will be operated in sectors managed by these Haredi soldiers. Maintaining religious rules in these units will be stricter than in the Netzah Yehuda battalion (the Haredi Nahal battalion), in which many combatants are people who left the religious world or who became less Orthodox even before joining the army. The IDF plans on most of the draftees being relatively young so that they can be incorporated into combat roles or as combat supporters.

Feeling burnout

Nine months into the war, the army is preparing for further changes in personnel policy to increase the number of combat soldiers and meet the growing workload. Initial data from the March and the upcoming August enlistment cohorts suggest a rise in the motivation of both male and female recruits for combat service, at the expense of demand for combat assignments once considered slightly less demanding, such as the air defense system and the Combat Intelligence Collection Corps. The IDF has asked the political leadership to move faster to extend again the period of mandatory service for men to 36 months, after approving the move.

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