The High Court of Justice ruled last Thursday that by Monday, April 1, certain state budgets for yeshivot whose students do not enlist in the IDF will be frozen.
In the absence of a new government decision regarding the enlistment (or rather, the non-enlistment) of haredim (ultra-Orthodox) to military service, according to Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara, the law prescribes that the IDF will have to start mobilizing them immediately. The HCJ did not adopt Baharav-Miara’s position on this issue but, as stated above, did rule that the budgeting of the relevant yeshivot should be cut.
This is undoubtedly a pretty drastic legal decision that threatens to bring about serious financial damage to a large section of the private haredi education system, if actually implemented. The financial foundations of most of this system, which is currently under no sort of effective state or other public supervision, are pretty rickety, and the governance culture prevailing in its administration is considered in official circles to be totally inappropriate.
However, the thought of a population of over a million inhabitants being left, all of a sudden, with an insecure economic base for its education system, is horrific.
At the same time, the thought of a modern, allegedly democratic state in the middle of the third decade of the 21st century, in which the majority of the children of over 10% of the population do not study more than a minimal core program of non-religious studies if at all; whose youth is exempt from military service for the purpose of religious studies, half of whom do not really study and thus evade enlistment to the army by fraudulent means; is mind-boggling.
It should be added that of those who evade enlistment and do not study, many do not enter the workforce formally, because this would make them immediately eligible for mandatory military service. This whole rigmarole makes it increasingly difficult for the non-haredi population to fathom this ongoing reality.
However, since the outbreak of war, an additional factor has been added, which requires urgent attention. For the first time in many years, the IDF confronts a situation that it does not have at its disposal sufficient manpower to successfully implement all the urgent tasks that it confronts in the situation of ongoing fighting in the Gaza Strip, growing unrest in the Judea and Samaria, and the possibility of the six-month cross-border skirmishes with Hezbollah turning into a full-scale war.
To confront this situation, the IDF has already called up reservists, who have only recently returned home after up to four months of duty, and many of whom are experiencing serious economic difficulties as a result; is planning to prolong the mandatory service of men to three years, after it had been shortened from 36 to 32 months back in 2015; and is planning to prolong the period of mandatory reserve duty from the age of 45 to 46 for officers, and from 40 to 41 for non-officers. The length of the annual reserve duty is also to be raised significantly.
As far as the IDF is concerned, an increase in the mobilization of haredim for full military service would greatly relieve the problem. Every year, some 12,000 haredi 18-year-olds are eligible for military service, but less than 10% of them actually turn up at the recruiting offices – mostly among youth who are no longer practicing haredim.
Will we really see a major revolution?
Following October 7, there was a feeling in the general public that the catastrophe would bring about some change in the haredi approach to the security situation and the importance of military service. Though there was undoubtedly some change, and for a while, the number of slightly older haredim (over 26) who volunteered for a shortened two-week basic training course to be followed by some form of reserve duty increased slightly, the numbers were much lower than hoped for, and the practice was actively discouraged by the haredi religious and political leadership.
On the contrary, haredi voices started to be heard to the effect that the hundreds of youngsters killed in the Nova music festival on October 7 died because they were being punished for participating in a sinful abomination, and that more were not killed because of the prayers of the haredim.
In fact, the traditional position of most of the Ashkenazi haredi religious leaders was and remains that the religious studies and prayers of the haredim contribute to Israel’s security at least as much (if not more) than the IDF and its fighting capabilities, and they systematically object to their youth joining the IDF, which they view as a secular organization and which will have a negative influence on those haredim, who might be enticed to join it.
Rabbi Zvi Friedman, the head of the Jerusalem Faction, which numbers approximately 60,000 members and is one of the most extreme haredi groups in Israel, recently stated in a conversation initiated by two members of Brothers in Arms that he would prefer that his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren be killed by Arabs than join a secular institution such as the IDF and become secular.
Shas, the Sephardi haredi party, is generally more moderate than its Ashkenazi counterparts (of Shas’s current 11 MKs, three served in the IDF and one did national service), but even there one can hear extreme positions on the issue of enlistment. Thus, in his weekly sermon three weeks ago, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef stated that “if we shall be forced to go to the army – we shall all go abroad.”
On the whole, the non-haredi population – whether secular, traditional, or National-Religious – does not object to a certain number of haredi prodigies being allowed to study rather than serve in the army, just as their counterparts at secular universities are allowed to do.
They also propose that the enlisted haredim should be offered conditions that do not contradict, but rather support their way of life, as is the case with National-Religious soldiers and their hesder yeshivot. Unfortunately, few haredim are inclined to accept such an offer.
Whether or not the decision of the HCJ will actually bring about a real change in a situation that has existed since the establishment of the state in 1948 is yet to be seen. Unlike many of my colleagues, I am not inclined to believe that we are about to experience a major revolution – not because a revolution is not urgently called for, but because the current government under Benjamin Netanyahu is still likely to come up with some sort of convoluted mechanism that will enjoy the support of a majority in the Knesset and allow the existing situation to survive in one form or another, for at least a few more years.
What is tragic about this scenario, is that it is inconceivable that Netanyahu himself does not understand that the existing situation is not only unfair, but that it is also ruinous to the economy and society, and that its only “advantage” is that it will allow his all-Right government to survive for a little longer in its current makeup.
The writer worked in the Knesset for many years as a researcher, and has published extensively both journalistic and academic articles on current affairs and Israeli politics. Her most recent book, Israel’s Knesset Members – A Comparative Study of an Undefined Job, was published by Routledge.