Israel: prosecutor calls for recruitment of ultra-Orthodox to begin | middle East

Israel’s attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, said she hoped the recruitment process for ultra-Orthodox Jews (haredim) begins this Monday, on an issue that is shaking the country’s Government, which has the support of ultra-Orthodox parties.

“As of April 1, 2024, there will be no source of authority for an exception to military recruitment for students in yeshivot [escolas religiosas]” and therefore the Defense authorities must “act to recruit them in accordance with the law”, wrote the attorney general in a letter to the legal advisors of the Ministry of Education and Defense published by Channel 13 of Israeli television.

Although a departure, at least for now, of these parties from the Government coalition is not expected, the issue is essential for them and this is the first “breach in the wall” of the coalition, he commented to the Washington Post Gilad Malach, an expert on the ultra-Orthodox community at the Israel Democracy Institute think tank.

The issue of the exception from the military service of the ultra-Orthodox was the main cause for the political impasse in Israel that lasted four years in which five legislative elections were held — it was not possible to reconcile the insistence of Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox partners in continuing to have the exception of military service and another former and potential partner of Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman, in making the haredim perform this service.

The possibility of some haredim not to do compulsory military service was granted by the founder of the Hebrew State and first head of Government David Ben-Gurion, when the community had a much smaller weight in the country (at the time it was granted to 400 students). All other citizens of Israel must do mandatory service (three years for men, two for women) with the exception of Palestinian citizens of Israel (Israeli Arabs). After the period of mandatory military service, years of annual service as reservists follow.

But with the ultra-Orthodox community representing 13% of the population, it becomes difficult either not to include them in the effort or to keep their studies subsidized by the State. The British diary The Guardian says that, according to data from the Israeli Armed Forces, around 66,000 ultra-Orthodox men were exempt from military service last year.

At the time of negotiations for the current government coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu, explains Anshell Pfeffer in Haaretzthe Prime Minister promised the ultra-Orthodox that he would protect them from a judicial decision contrary to the continuation of the exception (target of a judicial decision for violating the principle of equality).

But Netanyahu chose to first carry out an attack on the judicial system, trying to weaken the Supreme Court, arguing that this would be the easiest way to guarantee the maintenance of the exception for haredim. This maneuver, however, provoked a huge reaction in Israel, with weekly protests hugeand the Government ended up not carrying out the judicial reform — and, meanwhile, on October 7th, Hamas attacked.

It is not very likely that authorities will begin implementing recruitment orders immediately, say officials. average of Israel. Nor if the ultra-Orthodox parties leave the Government in the short term, or stop providing parliamentary support. They might, says Pfeffer in Haaretzmake a calculation that even without the exception it is worth it for them to stay in the executive, “where they have unprecedented power and billions of funds for their interests”.

The question should, indeed, be raised by the next executive, says Pfeffer.

If in any case demographic evolution would make it difficult for the ultra-Orthodox to maintain this status for much longer, the war that Israel is waging is causing the military forces to be strained, in addition to the number of soldiers killed in the Gaza, which reached 600 this Monday. In this context, the exception becomes even more difficult to defend.

There are three ways to have more soldiers on active duty, said Gilad Malach: increasing the duration of mandatory military service, increasing the period in which reservists serve and the last option would be for there to be more haredim in the Armed Forces (there are ultra-Orthodox soldiers serving in the Army, but they are a minority). “We are sending our children, brothers, sisters, to sacrifice their lives, and they [os ultra-ortodoxos] remain protected.”

For the community, this is “a big earthquake,” said Tzipi Yarom-Diskind, who works at the newspaper Mishpachato the Washington Post. For her, the issue can be summarized as follows: “We will no longer support those who study the Torah.” Since “it was the Torah that gave us the right to live here,” she argues, “those who preserve the Torah protect our right to live here.”

Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef said the community would leave the country on a large scale and go abroad. “The State exists based on the study of the Torah, without the Torah, there will be no success for the Army.”