Even the Religious Will Fight
On the morning of July 21, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) sent out the first round of 1,000 draft orders to men between the ages of 18 to 26 in the ultra-Orthodox “Haredi” Jewish communities across Israel. The order followed the historic June 25 Supreme Court ruling that overturned a decades-long ordinance exempting Haredi men studying in yeshiva schools from compulsory military service.
Although the country braced for violent protests, as witnessed in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in recent weeks, the draft went out relatively peacefully. Despite community leaders calling on yeshiva students to ignore the order, a recent poll presented to the Israeli Knesset showed that over 50 percent of students surveyed (450 between July 3-4) would comply with the draft if “Haredi-appropriate” measures were in place to maintain their lifestyle.
To the international community, the IDF represents a formidable regional power. At home, however, the conscripted “people’s army” binds the nation through a shared collective patriotic experience. Israelis enter the IDF at 18 for two years and remain in reserve units after reentering civilian life. The networks, shared experiences, and relationships forged during active and reserve duty form the backbone of society. As Dan Senor and Saul Singer argued in their bestselling Start-up Nation, the experiences that 20-year-olds bring to civilian life after their service have largely contributed to Israel’s entrepreneurial and economic success.
The ultra-Orthodox community, roughly 13 percent of the population, has long been exempt from this obligation, and, therefore, outside the national collective experience. Their ideology to observe and guard Torah and rabbinic commandments at all costs distinguishes them from the secular, nonreligious Jewish population and isolates them from society. In addition to customary dress, this devotion includes the daily study of the Torah and rabbinic literature in yeshivas, which receive state funding to maintain operation and support the often large Haredi families.
Historically, the Haredi communities have been split over support for the state. Many view the secular government and national Zionism — the very bodies protecting their way of life — as anathema to their ideology. Other more lenient communities who engage in economic and political arenas believe that persistent yeshiva study is for the “spiritual protection” of the country and its soldiers. While it’s not completely foreign to see Haredi men, and even fewer women, serving in voluntary security roles, obligatory conscription remained a contested issue.
The shifting tide, however, has long been coming. During the Menachem Begin administration in the late 1970s, concessions were made between right-wing and religious coalition parties to defer military service until students completed their yeshiva studies. This backfired as Haredi men thus became official yeshiva students for life, clinging to religious piety as an excuse for military exemption. Ultra-Orthodox political parties, such as Shas in 1984, became strategic coalition allies willing to partner with any political party, on the left or right, in exchange for maintaining the conscription status quo.
Today, the ultra-Orthodox constitute the fastest-growing section of the population. In early July, Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf (a Haredi politician) approved the construction of a new city for 80,000 residents in the northern Negev targeted specifically to the Haredi community. According to Israel’s National Economic Council, the ultra-Orthodox will account for one-quarter of Israel’s population by 2050.
The historic military exemption expired in June 2023 and was succeeded by temporary regulations. The unanimous ruling from a panel of nine judges on June 25 upheld that Haredi men must enlist, and yeshivas would lose state funding if their students evaded enlistment. This follows the death of 681 Israeli soldiers in Gaza since Oct. 7 (a population percentage that equates to roughly 25,000 American soldiers), the escalation of Islamic militia violence in the West Bank, and the looming threat of a full-scale war against Hezbollah in the north that will require additional front lines and auxiliary personnel. “The strains of the war in Gaza and the north require the contributions of all sectors of society,” noted Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who described the exemption of ultra-Orthodox to study in yeshivas as “impractical.”
In response, the former chief rabbi of Israel and current spiritual leader of Shas, Yitzhak Yosef, warned: “If they force us to go to the army, we’ll all move abroad.” Rabbi Yosef made further allusions to the fact that the biblical tribe of Levi, the Priestly tribe, was also exempt from military duty. There are currently 67,000 Haredi males eligible for recruitment, while roughly 540 have volunteered for the IDF or community security units since the war began in October 2023.
Days after Gallant approved the IDF’s first draft for July 21, the chief of staff outlined what the “Haredi Battalion” would entail based on recommendations from the “Shkedi Committee,” a group established by Gallant to oversee integration. New units will comprise male recruits with Torah-observant commanders and a civilian-rabbinic body to advise on religious issues and maintain Torah learning within the unit.
The IDF’s objective to “recruit from all sectors of society” reflects the heterogeneous fabric of Israeli institutions. Ze’ev Jabotinsky once compared the early Israelis of the new state to an orchestra with distinct instruments and purpose. David Ohana, the prolific author at the Ben Gurion Research Institute, called Israel’s society of immigrants “the revolutionary ideology of the melting pot.”
The IDF has long been a reflection of this melting pot with representations from Ashkenazi, Sephardic, modern Orthodox, reform, and secular Jews joined by East African immigrants and volunteers from other exempted groups, such as Arab Muslims and Christians. The so-called “Bedouin Battalion” (Muslims in southern Israel) is currently active in Gaza, while the number of Druze soldiers that have fought and died in the IDF since October 7 is enough to make Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad in Syria order assassinations on Druze leaders. While the draft order for the ultra-Orthodox forecasts the IDF’s mobilization for uncertain days ahead, it could also usher in a new generation that sees the gulf between religious and secular shrink under the shared patriotic bonds of unity, cooperation, and survival.
The post Even the Religious Will Fight appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.