We Israelis are very into WhatsApp groups, especially family groups. My extended family group, with dozens of cousins, aunts, and uncles, came to life this week. Instead of the usual “Mazal Tov” on the birth of a new cousin, it was different: My cousin, Tzvia, in her late 30s and a mother of four, decided to enlist for reserve IDF service.
“Tzvia, a mother of four, a registered nurse at Meir Hospital, and a paramedic has collaborated with the IDF several times since the start of the war,” my uncle, Ray Rublin, posted on Facebook as a proud father. “She concluded that she could contribute more in uniform. Today, I took leave from my reserve duty to accompany her as she enlisted in a unique program for religious women with professional training in fields needed by the IDF.”
He later explained, “They are all in medical professions and will likely be part of the statistics of the haredim (ultra-Orthodox).” My uncle Ray, who has been exempt from mandatory reserve service for decades, and my cousin Tzvia, who has a successful career and a family to raise, decided to step up because Israel truly needs more volunteers.
Though the ultra-Orthodox dress is black and white, the haredi draft issue has many shades of gray. Few problems in Israel are as tangled and fraught with emotion as the haredi draft law. It stirs deep passions, divides communities, and challenges the very fabric of Israeli society. Since the state’s founding, the question of whether ultra-Orthodox Jews should serve in the IDF has been a perennial thorn in the nation’s side.
Many leaders in the haredi world understand the importance of service but will never say so out loud. On the other hand, some secular Israelis want the haredim to join the IDF so that they can assimilate into Israeli society and break their strict traditions.
The law is not a recent development but a complex issue with deep historical roots. In 1948, when the State of Israel was still in its infancy, then-prime minister David Ben-Gurion granted a handful of yeshiva students exemptions from military service to continue their religious studies, aiming to preserve Jewish scholarship after the Holocaust. This modest exemption has since evolved into a widespread practice, sparking a heated debate about equality, national duty, and the role of religion in a modern state.
An ongoing drama
The story of the haredi draft law is like a legal and political soap opera. In 2002, the Tal Law was introduced to provide a formal structure for the exemptions. It allowed yeshiva students to defer their service indefinitely if they stayed in religious study. But by 2012, the Supreme Court declared the Tal Law unconstitutional, saying it violated the principle of equality by failing to ensure a fair distribution of the burden of military service.
What followed were years of legislative ping-pong. The Knesset tried again in 2014, passing a new law that included quotas for haredi enlistment and criminal penalties for evasion. This, too, was amended and eventually struck down by the Supreme Court in 2017, which said it perpetuated inequality.
So, where do things stand now? In the last few weeks, the saga has taken yet another twist. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies in the haredi parties are working on a new draft bill. This one aims to lower the exemption age from 26 to somewhere between 21 and 23, thus enabling haredi men to enter the workforce earlier while still providing benefits to those who serve.
Different solutions were suggested to encourage haredi Israelis to join the IDF: In 1999, the IDF established the Nahal Haredi battalion, also known as Netzah Yehuda, for ultra-Orthodox Jewish soldiers. According to the IDF, Nahal Haredi provides an environment that respects their religious lifestyles and accommodations for kosher dietary laws, daily prayers, and Torah study. This unit was meant to allow haredi youth to serve in the military without compromising their religious values, integrating thousands of ultra-Orthodox soldiers into the IDF and bridging the gap between their community and national defense. That said, not all of the battalion’s soldiers come from haredi backgrounds; many come from religious-Zionist or Modern Orthodox communities.
Earlier this week, I obtained a letter from Rabbi Yitzhak Bar Chaim, co-founder and rabbi of Nahal Haredi. He wrote to Maj.-Gen. (res.) Eliezer Shkedy about the contentious issue of recruiting haredim into the IDF. He highlighted the need for frameworks that respected the haredi lifestyle and values, noting that integration within the general army had led many haredim to abandon their religious practices.
A need to accommodate
“Without a fundamental change in approach by the IDF towards the need for frameworks that support the lifestyle and values of the haredi public, the community, its parents, and educators will not cooperate and will even fight by all legal and educational means at their disposal to prevent such recruitment,” he wrote.
Bar Chaim stressed that the IDF’s current approach lacked trust and failed to address these issues, leading to resistance from haredi parents and educators. He advocated for separate systems within the IDF to encourage haredi enlistment while maintaining their way of life. Unfortunately, Bar Chaim wrote that these suggestions were not included in the committee’s recommendations, leading to internal conflicts. “The lack of trust in the sincere desire of the IDF to change its approach is the main reason why the recruitment of haredim has been stagnating in recent years,” he wrote.
No one can claim that Bar Chaim doesn’t want to draft haredim into the IDF; this has been his life mission. But his letter makes you wonder if there may be better ways to make the IDF a more friendly place for haredi Jews.
On the other side, Israel is at war.
Almost every sector in Israeli society has paid a massive toll these past nine months: the kibbutz members from the south who were butchered and kidnapped, the secular Israelis who were killed at the Nova festival, the many religious Zionist soldiers who were killed in action and are being buried on an almost weekly basis, and the Bedouin and Druze communities who have lost many of their sons in the army, as well as members of these groups who were killed on October 7 or kidnapped and taken forcefully to Gaza.
IT IS clear: Israel needs more soldiers. Period. Full stop.
This isn’t a myth. This isn’t a conspiracy theory. Many of my friends have served for months, some even more than 200 days of active reserve duty. They paid physical, mental, and personal costs for doing so. Many lost friends or saw the most terrifying sights on October 7 and onward. Some suffer from post-traumatic stress, fearing they might not possess the same spirit and strength they did at the start of the war when called back. The real question is: Why do these same individuals need to return to IDF reserve service?
Meanwhile, let’s not ignore the importance of Torah learning. This is our essence, our culture, and our history. Preserving these texts is something that we should all cherish. That said, we cannot ignore the fact that the majority of Israelis believe it problematic that haredi Jews, as a community, are against serving in the IDF. However, we cannot begin a dialogue without acknowledging these elements. Though it is challenging now, we cannot address this issue without understanding nuance and seeing the good on the other side. Furthermore, negative public discourse has caused both sides to become more extreme and even toxic.
I support the draft of haredim. But I also know that if the government forces this draft, it will backfire. Therefore, the haredi rabbis and leadership must get off their high horses and make brave decisions; the Israeli sentiment is becoming very hostile towards them. Those who agree that haredim (at least those who aren’t sitting in yeshivas 24/7) should enlist in the IDF must also understand what a huge step this group would need to take for this to happen. Also, we must not seek to change them but rather allow them to live according to their beliefs while serving and guarding Israel, which is under the most dangerous threat since the establishment of the modern Jewish state in 1948.
Let’s not forget that the Hamas terrorists slaughtered left-wing peace activists in the same way they butchered religious Israelis. Hamas is the true enemy. Let’s never forget that.