Alt+SHIFT: Haredi Draft

Alt+SHIFT is the keyboard shortcut allowing us quick transition between input languages on our keyboards—for many readers of TRADITION that’s the move from Hebrew to English (and back again). Yitzchak Blau continues this Tradition Online series offering his insider’s look into trends, ideas, and writings in the Israeli Religious Zionist world helping readers from the Anglo sphere to Alt+SHIFT and gain insight into worthwhile material available only in Hebrew. See the archive of all columns in this series.

This will be Alt+SHIFT’s final installment before heading off on hiatus. Stay tuned for the upcoming Tradition Podcast in which Yitzhak Blau summarizes what we’ve been doing here over the past 14 months—and why—and get a preview of the column which will take its place starting in two weeks.

Exempting Haredi yeshiva students from military service generated contention already at the state’s founding but the current war has more powerfully brought this issue to the fore. The many tragic deaths in other sectors of Israeli society (Yeshivat Yeruham alone has lost nine talmidim) highlight the absence of Haredim from the dangers of army life. Manpower challenges caused by the call-up of so many reservists gave lie to the claim that the IDF has more than enough soldiers and no need for more draftees. Note the current planning to move up the drafting of Mekhina students to cover the need for additional troops. Haredi political parties in the present government demanding more funding for yeshivot adds fuel to the fire.

When Ben-Gurion allowed an army exemption for a few hundred yeshiva students, it was unimaginable that by 2015, 64,605 men would be taking advantage of it a year (a lesson to would-be prophetic sociologists everywhere). Reports just released say that a record high 66,000 Haredim were exempted this past year (but noted that 540 have volunteered to draft during these months of war). A few salient details clarify how different the situation was in 1948. Some official mouthpieces of Agudat Yisrael supported enlistment while even moderate rabbis such as R. Yitzchak Herzog and R. Isser Zalman Meltzer favored exempting yeshiva students. In the War of Independence, Gedud Tuvya was made up of Haredi students though, in the end, they did not engage in combat and spent their time building fortifications in Jerusalem. Notably, both R. Chaim Kaniefsky and R. Gedalya Nagel served in this context. As the secular nature of the young state became manifest and due to an episode where observant soldiers were punished for not heating up food on Shabbat, Haredim lost all enthusiasm for army service.

For a long time, the exemption was limited to 800 new students a year but with the entry of Haredi parties into the government with Likud’s rise to power in 1977, that limitation was abolished. Since then, many coalitions dependent on Haredi parties to maintain their control have been reluctant to challenge the status quo. Despite the formation of several commissions to address this problem, the practical situation remains the same. This has both security and economic repercussions since Haredim must remain in full-time yeshiva mode until age 26 to avoid the draft and are thus kept out of the workforce.

The most famous of the commissions, the Tal Commission, decided in 2012 that at the age of 22 yeshiva students would be offered a choice between shortened army service and a year of civil service. These policies were never put into practice and were ruled illegal by Israel’s Supreme Court based on a lack of societal equality. As part of Aharon Barak’s judicial activist reform, the same court that decided in the 1970s that they had no jurisdiction to try the case of Haredi draft exemptions later concluded that it was subject to judicial review.

Reactions to the proposed law put forth in the wake of the Tal Commission revealed an important divide among the Haredi rabbinate. The mainstream, led by R. Avraham Yehuda Leib Shteinman, favored participating in such commissions to maintain yeshiva exemptions. The more hard-line position, led by R. Shmuel Auerbach, called for ignoring any government initiatives in this realm, even opposing the pro-forma act of Haredim going to lishkat ha-giyus (draft board) to be issued their exemptions. The same circles started a campaign in 2013 to embarrass Haredim who enlist, calling them Hardakim, Haredim Kalei Da’at (“frivolous Haredim”), a word that sounds like the Hebrew word for bacteria.

Many hoped that the formation of Netzah Yehuda (also called the Nahal Ha-Haredi), an army unit tailored to the needs of Haredi soldiers, would increase the numbers of Haredim in the army but this has not been the case. Many of those in this unit turned out to be either dropouts from the Haredi system or men from the National Religious camp. Between 2018 and 2021, about 900 to 1,300 Haredim enlisted annually. Given the fact that nearly 66,000 students utilize the yeshiva exception and do not serve, a very small percentage of Haredim enlist.

In recent years, Haredim have grown to identify much more with the Jewish State and many have contributed important hesed work in helping our soldiers during the current conflict. However, the number of Haredim enlisting has not really changed. To the degree that we hear voices calling for change from within the Haredi community, they tend to come from below and not from rabbinic leadership. Indeed, in the last four months, we have even heard some fairly prominent rabbinic voices downplaying the contribution of soldiers at the front and calling out against missing learning time to engage in volunteering initiatives helping soldiers.

The amount of resentment this has historically caused can be measured in how anti-Haredi sentiment has fueled the rise of various political parties including Rafael Eitan’s Tzomet, Tommy Lapid’s Shinuy, Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteynu, and Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid. While some anti-Haredi rhetoric borders on anti-Semitism, one must admit that watching one’s own children serve while an entire community, and a fast-growing one at that, receives an exemption is a worthy source of complaint and frustration. We hope and pray that the various groups within Israeli society can work out their dispute about army service fairly and equitably.

Yitzchak Blau, Rosh Yeshivat Orayta in Jerusalem’s Old City, is an Associate Editor of TRADITION.