A Letter to Mishpacha Magazine that was not published
To the Editor:
Eli Paley’s “A Manufactured Deadlock” raises important concerns that deserve serious consideration. There certainly are people and organizations in Israel who look upon the Charedi community with condescension, fail to appreciate the extraordinary value of Torah learning, or would like to weaken Charedi religious and educational autonomy. Those attitudes should be challenged. Nor should the spiritual concerns that Charedi parents and rabbanim have regarding army service be dismissed. The army has not always earned the community’s trust, and any serious effort to increase Charedi service must provide genuine safeguards regarding tefillah, kashrut, Shabbat, tzniut, Torah learning, and the religious character of the units in which Charedi soldiers serve.
Nevertheless, I found the central framing of Mr. Paley’s article deeply troubling.
He portrays the present crisis largely as the result of a long ideological campaign against lomdei Torah, intensified by courts, progressive organizations, secular hostility, wealthy philanthropists, and people determined to undermine the Torah world. He presents the Charedi community as having offered practical solutions, only to have those solutions rejected by institutions more interested in confrontation than cooperation.
Not Only Those Who Are Learning
There may be elements of truth in that account. There unquestionably are hostile voices. But Mr. Paley leaves out one of the most important parts of the story: The dominant position of mainstream Charedi leadership has not merely been that a limited number of exceptional Torah scholars should be protected, nor even that every sincere full-time yeshivah student should be exempt. Increasingly, it has become categorical opposition to the compulsory enlistment of Charedi young men as a community—including many who are not learning seriously or are not learning at all.
This is not an accusation invented by hostile secular activists. Former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Rav Yitzchak Yosef stated explicitly that “it is forbidden to go to the army, even for one who is idle.” More recently, recordings of Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch revealed that he regarded the proposed draft legislation primarily as a way to “buy time.” Asked whether young men outside existing yeshivah frameworks would eventually enlist, he answered, “God forbid.” Regarding proposed enlistment targets, he asked, “Do they think we will want to meet the target? Of course, we will not want to.” Rav Dov Landau was equally categorical: “Whether the authorities agree to it or not, not a single yeshivah student, not even one, will go to the army.” [1]
Those statements cannot simply be ignored while the public is told that the disagreement concerns only the protection of lomdei Torah. A young man who is not learning is not being exempted because of his Torah learning. He is being exempted because he is Charedi. That is no longer an exemption for exceptional Torah scholarship; it is a communal exemption.
Nor is the problem merely theoretical. Research based upon reported employment records found substantial work participation among men formally registered in Charedi yeshivot between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. By age twenty-five, approximately one-third were employed in an average month, and 45 percent had reported employment at some point during the year. The researchers noted that their figures included only reported employment and therefore may understate the reality. [2]
Employment does not necessarily mean that a person is not learning seriously, and not every student whose learning has weakened should be disparaged. But these figures make clear that the legal category of “yeshivah student” cannot simply be assumed to mean that every individual is wholly devoted to uninterrupted Torah study. Yet mainstream leadership has generally opposed enlistment even for those outside that ideal.
Who Were the Volunteers the Army Rejected?
The response to actual draft orders also tells a story very different from the one suggested by Mr. Paley’s phrase “Willingness Nobody Wanted.” At the conclusion of the 2024–2025 draft year, an IDF representative reported to a Knesset committee that only approximately five percent of Charedi recipients of draft notices had appeared as required. Earlier figures showed that, of 18,915 men who had received notices, only 232 had enlisted through that process. [3]
That does not look primarily like a large population of willing draft-age Charedi men being rejected by an army that does not want them. It looks much more like a deeply rooted culture of institutional resistance, reinforced by communal and rabbinic leadership.
Mr. Paley points instead to more than 6,000 working Charedi men who approached the IDF after October 7 through the Shlav Bet framework and says that most were never absorbed. Their willingness to contribute is admirable and deserves recognition. These men stepped forward at a moment of national catastrophe, and the IDF may indeed deserve criticism for bureaucracy, lack of preparation, or failure to make effective use of some of them.
But this example does not establish what Mr. Paley appears to suggest. These were primarily older, working Charedi men, many already beyond the ordinary age of compulsory service, seeking entry into an abbreviated training program leading to reserve, support, professional, Home Front, or emergency roles. They were not thousands of eighteen- or twenty-year-old yeshivah students presenting themselves for ordinary military service and being rejected because the army did not want Charedim.
Earlier official figures showed approximately 4,000 applicants during the first months of the war. Most were found medically or otherwise unsuitable for the available program; approximately 880 were found fit, and roughly 600 were recruited. [4] That may still leave legitimate questions about whether the army could have absorbed more. Perhaps it failed to recognize the skills, motivation, and potential contribution of many applicants. If so, that failure deserves criticism. But it is far from proof that the IDF rejected thousands of qualified Charedim because it did not want Charedi participation.
More fundamentally, Shlav Bet does not answer the question dividing the country. Older men volunteering after they have passed the normal draft age can make an important contribution, and their service should be welcomed and expanded. But abbreviated training for older volunteers does not replace the need for younger soldiers who can undergo full training, serve for years, perform combat and combat-support duties, and then remain available for decades of reserve service.
From Limited Deferment to Communal Exemption
The question tearing Israeli society apart is not whether older working Charedim should be permitted to volunteer. It is what responsibility should be borne by the tens of thousands of Charedi men of ordinary draft age—particularly those who are not among the exceptional Torah scholars and those who are barely learning or no longer learning at all. Mr. Paley’s own institute has explained that its proposal is directed primarily toward working men beyond the ordinary exemption age and does not address yeshivah students or the central draft controversy. It may be a worthwhile additional program. It is not a solution to the principal dispute.
There is also an important historical issue that should not be overlooked. The idea now advanced in many Charedi circles—that Torah learning itself creates a categorical, effectively community-wide exemption from military participation, even during a milchemet mitzvah—is not an ancient and uncontested national tradition reflected in the experience of the State’s founding.
The Rambam famously writes regarding a milchemet mitzvah: “Everyone goes out—even a groom from his chamber and a bride from her wedding canopy” (Hilchot Melachim U’Milchamoteihem 7:4). There are, of course, important halachic discussions concerning the application of these laws, the spiritual role of Torah learning, and which individuals might properly remain devoted entirely to Torah. A letter to the editor cannot resolve those questions. But neither can one simply assume that there has always been an undisputed Torah principle exempting an entire community of yeshivah-age men, including those who are not learning, from participation in national defense.
Ben-Gurion indeed approved deferments for approximately 400 yeshivah students in 1948. The original arrangement was a limited measure, adopted after the destruction of the great European yeshivot and intended to preserve a small remnant of intensive Torah scholarship. It was not an unlimited exemption for an entire community. Later arrangements still required active yeshivah study and contemplated military service for those who left yeshivah. In 1967, the number of annual exemptions was capped at 800. The decisive change came in 1977, when the Begin government removed the numerical limits. From that point, a narrowly bounded arrangement intended to preserve an elite cadre of Torah scholars gradually developed into the basis for a mass—and ultimately near-community-wide—exemption. [5]
Thus, I am not claiming that deferments were invented in 1977. They were not. I am saying that the present model, under which nearly every Charedi male may be protected from service merely by remaining formally associated with the yeshivah system until reaching exemption age, is historically new. It is largely the product of political decisions made and expanded during recent decades, not an unchanging arrangement inherited from the founding of the State.
Nor did the Charedi community universally regard Torah study as categorically incompatible with wartime participation in 1948. Charedi residents and yeshivah students took part in the defense of Jerusalem and other communities. The Gdud Tuvia framework organized yeshivah students to perform dangerous fortification work in besieged Jerusalem. [6]
Even Rav Chaim Kanievsky, who later became perhaps the outstanding symbol of total devotion to Torah in our generation, participated in wartime defense. According to a biographical account, when he was a twenty-year-old student in the Lomza Yeshivah in Petach Tikva, he was taken with other yeshivah students to an artillery area and assigned to guard a hill. Famously, he brought a Gemara and continued learning while fulfilling his assigned duty. [7]
The point is not to exaggerate the nature of his brief service or suggest that the conditions of 1948 and today are identical. The point is that even one of the greatest and most dedicated Torah scholars of modern times was not understood to be categorically removed from every form of national defense merely because he was a yeshivah student.
What Would Genuine Cooperation Look Like?
Mr. Paley writes that, traditionally, those who devoted themselves to full-time Torah learning remained outside military service, while those who entered the workforce could be integrated through practical arrangements. Were that truly the operative position of Charedi leadership today, the debate would look very different.
Imagine Charedi roshei yeshivah and political representatives approaching the army and saying: We recognize the desperate national need and the extraordinary burden being carried by soldiers, reservists, wives, children, parents, employers, and communities. We believe that a limited number of outstanding Torah scholars should be permitted to devote themselves entirely to learning, and we insist that all Charedi servicemen receive serious and enforceable religious protections. But we also recognize that many Charedi young men should serve, and we are prepared to work honestly and creatively to build appropriate frameworks for them.
Such an approach would not eliminate every disagreement. There would still be difficult questions concerning numbers, standards, accommodations, military culture, length of service, and trust. But it would transform the national conversation.
Unfortunately, that has generally not been the message. Too often, the message has been: under no circumstances—not only the exceptional iluyim, not only those learning with extraordinary diligence, not only everyone formally registered in yeshivah, but even those outside serious learning. It is therefore unfair to place primary responsibility for the resulting deadlock upon the courts, secular Israelis, or organizations supposedly hostile to Torah.
Economic Pressure Is Not Hatred of Torah
Mr. Paley also recounts a private meeting at a Jewish Funders Network conference in Phoenix during the judicial reform controversy. He writes that two influential philanthropists told him that they did not wish to lower the flames of public conflict but wanted to “make them burn even hotter.” If accurately remembered and understood, the story is disturbing. But it is also an anonymous and unverifiable anecdote. Readers are not told who made the statements, precisely what they meant, what political strategy was under discussion, or whether those two individuals represented any broader philanthropic network. Most importantly, the meeting occurred during the battle over judicial reform, not the present draft dispute.
It is an enormous leap from two unnamed individuals expressing a confrontational political strategy during that crisis to the conclusion that opposition to broad Charedi exemptions is driven by hatred of Torah. Even when philanthropists or advocacy groups support economic sanctions connected to the draft, that does not establish that their objective is to cause Charedi families hardship for its own sake or to damage Torah learning.
Many Israelis have concluded—rightly or wrongly—that decades of voluntary targets, unenforced promises, political postponements, and appeals for gradual change have failed, and that meaningful economic consequences are the only measures likely to bring about actual change. That position may be criticized. Particular sanctions may be excessive, inequitable, harmful to innocent family members, or counterproductive. But it is unfair simply to characterize economic pressure as evidence of hatred toward Torah. Indeed, recent data suggest that economic consequences may affect enlistment, although sanctions alone cannot produce broad change without appropriate military frameworks and a change in communal leadership. [8]
The Opposition Is Not Limited to Peleg Yerushalmi
There is another painful omission. The road-blocking demonstrations associated with Peleg Yerushalmi are often dismissed as the conduct of an extremist fringe that does not represent mainstream Charedi society. There is truth in that distinction. It would be unfair to say that all mainstream leaders approve of every roadblock, abusive slogan, or incident of violence. Rav Dov Landau, for example, ordered the cancellation of a major demonstration that was expected to paralyze important roads.
But Peleg Yerushalmi cannot be used as a convenient alibi, allowing the rest of the Charedi leadership to claim that the entire phenomenon belongs to someone else. The same demonstration had previously received Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch’s approval. Mainstream spiritual leaders have called upon military police not to arrest Charedi draft evaders, political leaders have visited jailed evaders and honored their resistance, and the massive anti-draft rally of October 2025 brought together participants from across much of the Charedi spectrum. [9]
Thus, while there may be disagreements over tactics, the underlying message of categorical opposition to meaningful compulsory enlistment is hardly confined to Peleg Yerushalmi.
What has largely been missing is a comparably powerful, collective, and sustained declaration by mainstream Charedi leadership saying that blocking ordinary citizens from reaching work, hospitals, airports, or their families is wrong; that harassing soldiers and police is wrong; that calling Jewish soldiers Nazis, murderers, or enemies of Torah is intolerable; and that young Charedi men who choose to serve honorably in appropriate religious frameworks must not be shamed or treated as though they have abandoned Torah.
Individual voices have condemned particular incidents. But there has not been a forceful, united repudiation comparable in strength and visibility to the repeated declarations that no Charedi young man will serve.
Who Is the “Olam HaTorah”?
This brings me to what I found perhaps most painful in Mr. Paley’s article: the repeated use of the expressions “the Torah world” and “Olam HaTorah” as though they were synonymous with the Charedi world.
By what authority does any one community claim exclusive ownership of the title “Olam HaTorah”?
Israel contains a vast and magnificent Torah world outside the Charedi community. There are hesder yeshivot, yeshivot gevohot, kollelim, rabbanim, roshei yeshivah, serious talmidei chachamim, and thousands of deeply committed yirei Shamayim whose students and graduates proudly serve in the IDF.
Their batei midrash are filled with serious Torah learning. Their roshei yeshivah have produced major works of halachah, Tanach, Gemara, and machshavah. Their students learn intensely, leave the beit midrash to defend the Jewish people, and return—sometimes after many exhausting and dangerous months—to continue learning.
Since October 7, that Torah community has paid an almost unbearable price. Yeshivah students, rabbanim, graduates, and fathers of large families have served repeated deployments. Some have fallen. Others have returned wounded in body or spirit. Their wives and children have carried extraordinary burdens.
I personally know a Rav and businessman, the father of five young children, who recently reached one thousand days of military service since October 7. He has not abandoned Torah. His service is not evidence that Torah is unimportant to him. His willingness to place his life, livelihood, and family stability at risk for the Jewish people is itself an expression of Torah values.
Their Torah is not second-class Torah. Their mesirut nefesh is not a concession to secular values. They are also the Olam HaTorah.
Indeed, many of the strongest critics of broad Charedi exemptions are not secular enemies of religion. They are rabbanim, talmidei chachamim, religious soldiers, roshei yeshivah, parents of soldiers, and families who have buried sons raised in Torah homes. The disagreement is not simply between “the Torah world” and those who oppose Torah. It is a profound disagreement within the Torah world concerning what the Torah requires when the Jewish people are at war.
Honoring Torah—or Constitutionalizing Exemption?
The same problem appears in Mr. Paley’s discussion of the proposed Basic Law: Torah Study.
No believing Jew needs to be persuaded that Torah learning is a foundational value of the Jewish people. Of course it is. Torah is the heart of our national identity and spiritual existence, and the State of Israel should honor, support, encourage, and celebrate serious Torah learning.
But the controversy was never merely about issuing an innocent declaration that Torah study is important. Earlier versions of the proposed legislation went considerably further. They provided that those undertaking long-term Torah study would be regarded, regarding their rights and obligations, as performing meaningful service for the State of Israel and the Jewish people. Legal analysts, therefore, understood the proposal as an attempt to create constitutional support for draft exemptions and prevent those who do not serve from losing government benefits. [10]
Since Mr. Paley’s article appeared, the most explicit provisions have been removed, leaving only the declaration that Torah study is a foundational value in the heritage of the Jewish people. That change is significant and welcome. Nevertheless, Mr. Paley’s own article makes clear that his argument was never merely symbolic. He describes the proposed Basic Law as providing a constitutional foundation for legislation protecting lomdei Torah from repeated judicial invalidation and calls for a framework protecting yeshivah students from criminal and economic sanctions. Thus, the concern raised by critics was not imaginary. Mr. Paley himself connects constitutional recognition of Torah study directly to preserving exemptions and protection from sanctions.
That raises a serious question of fairness. Israel does have Basic Law: The Military, but that law primarily establishes the status and command structure of the IDF, its subordination to civilian authority, and the legal basis for conscription. It does not elevate military service, national sacrifice, equality of burden, or defense of the country as a foundational constitutional value comparable to the constitutional recognition sought for Torah study. [11]
Why should one form of contribution receive special constitutional elevation precisely when that status is intended to justify exemption from another form of contribution—one involving years of service, repeated reserve duty, separation from family, damage to careers and businesses, physical danger, injury, and sometimes death?
Rav Yaakov Medan’s fierce criticism of the original proposal cannot honestly be dismissed as hostility toward Torah. Rav Medan is a major rosh yeshivah and talmid chacham. He stated explicitly that he had no objection to recognizing Torah study as a foundational Jewish value or encouraging those who learn. His objection was to using Torah as a mechanism for avoiding responsibility. He wrote that he could not recall another Israeli law so “filled with chillul Hashem, degradation of Torah, and distortion of Torah,” and emphasized that Torah learning does not exempt a Jew from the mitzvot taught by the Torah—including obligations toward fellow Jews and participation in defending them from enemies. [12]
Whether one agrees with every word of his criticism or not, it is profoundly unfair to portray his position, or that of the many Religious Zionist rabbanim who share it, as evidence that Israeli society has turned against Torah. They are not opposing Torah. They are disputing the use of Torah as a constitutional shield for a broad communal exemption.
Partnership Requires Two Partners
Nor is every demand for legal equality evidence of a campaign against Charedi life. The Supreme Court may be criticized, and particular rulings, legal doctrines, and sanctions may be debated. But the courts did not repeatedly strike down draft arrangements simply because judges disapproved of Torah learning. Their stated concerns involved severe inequality and the failure of successive arrangements to achieve their own declared goals of meaningful participation. [13]
One may disagree with those decisions. But it is a terrible accusation to transform every demand for equality, every call for meaningful enlistment, and every objection to blanket exemption into evidence of hatred toward Torah.
There is certainly a need for greater respect toward Charedi society and greater understanding of the incomparable value of Torah learning. There is a need for military frameworks in which Charedi young men can serve without sacrificing their religious identity. There is also a need to recognize and welcome the admirable willingness of older working Charedim who wish to contribute.
But partnership requires honesty and movement from both sides. It requires the IDF to admit past mistakes, earn trust, enforce its religious commitments, and provide serious—not cosmetic—religious protections. It also requires Charedi leadership to acknowledge that the present burden is unsustainable; that not every young man is an exceptional Torah scholar; that men who are not genuinely learning cannot honestly be exempted in the name of their Torah learning; and that the lives, families, Torah, livelihoods, and spiritual commitments of those who serve are not less precious than those of the community they defend.
Mr. Paley concludes by calling for partnership rather than polarization. I share that hope. But partnership cannot begin by describing nearly every demand for shared responsibility as an attack upon lomdei Torah. It cannot begin by placing all blame upon courts, secularists, philanthropists, and ideological activists while overlooking the categorical refusal of much of Charedi leadership to encourage meaningful service by draft-age young men, including many who are not learning. And it cannot begin by claiming, explicitly or implicitly, that one community alone is “the Olam HaTorah.”
Moshe Rabbeinu’s question remains:
“Shall your brothers go to war while you sit here?”
That question was not asked by a progressive NGO, a secular journalist, an anti-religious philanthropist, or the Supreme Court.
It was asked by Moshe Rabbeinu.
It deserves an answer—not an accusation that those asking it are enemies of Torah.
Rabbi Yehuda L. Oppenheimer
Sources
[1] Statements by Leading Chareidi Rabbanim Regarding Enlistment
For Rav Yitzchak Yosef’s statement that “it is forbidden to go to the army, even for one who is idle,” see: “Ex-Chief Rabbi on Haredi Draft: ‘Even Those Who Are Idle Are Forbidden from Going to the Army,’” The Times of Israel, December 15, 2024.
For the recordings in which Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch described the proposed draft legislation as a means of gaining time and rejected the idea that Chareidi leadership would seek to meet the proposed enlistment targets, see: Stav Levaton and Times of Israel staff, “New Recordings Indicate Haredi Rabbis See Conscription Law Merely as Way to Buy Time,” The Times of Israel, January 22, 2026. “‘No One Will Go to the Army’: Recordings of Haredi Rabbis Revealed,” Israel National News, January 21, 2026. This report includes Rav Hirsch’s statements: “Do they think we will want to meet the target? Of course we will not want to,” and, regarding young men outside existing yeshivah frameworks, “God forbid.”
For Rav Dov Landau’s declaration that “not a single yeshivah student, not even one, will go to the army,” see: “Top Haredi Rabbi Vows No Yeshiva Student Will Be Drafted to IDF,” The Times of Israel, February 12, 2026.
[2] Employment Among Men Formally Registered as Yeshivah Students
Gabriel Gordon, “Workforce Participation of Haredi Yeshiva Students Under the Exemption Age,” Israel Democracy Institute, July 16, 2024.
The study examines reported employment among men ages eighteen through twenty-five who were formally registered in Chareidi yeshivot. It notes that the data include only officially reported employment and therefore may understate actual workforce participation.
[3] Response to Draft Notices
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, April 23, 2025:
Official Knesset report concerning 18,915 draft notices and 232 enlistments.
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, July 15, 2025:
Official Knesset report stating that approximately five percent of Chareidi recipients of draft notices had appeared as required during the relevant draft year.
See also: Shlomit Ravitsky Tur-Paz, “A Year Since the Supreme Court’s Conscription Ruling,” Israel Democracy Institute, June 25, 2025.
[4] Shlav Bet Applicants and the Scope of Paley’s Proposal
Knesset Research and Information Center, report issued April 3, 2024:
Official Knesset Research and Information Center report concerning military-service eligibility and enlistment rates by population group.
The report states that approximately 4,000 Chareidi men applied through Shlav Bet between October 7, 2023, and the end of February 2024. Most were apparently over age twenty-six. Approximately 3,120 were found unsuitable, generally for medical reasons; approximately 880 were found fit; and approximately 600 were recruited. The report also records approximately 540 Chareidi men under age twenty-six entering ordinary compulsory service during the same period.
For the stated scope of Paley’s own proposal, see: “Executive Program: 2030,” Haredim for Israel’s Security / Institute for Strategy and Haredi Policy.
The program states expressly that it “is not a substitute for the Draft Law and does not apply to yeshiva students.” It is directed toward working Chareidim beyond the exemption age who are not designated for compulsory military service.
[5] Historical Development of the Torato Omanuto Arrangement
Yuval Shany and Mirit Lavi, “Development of the Haredi Exemption Law,” Israel Democracy Institute, March 7, 2024.
The historical chronology records approximately 400 exemptions in 1948; the 1958 requirement of active yeshivah study and provisions requiring varying forms of military service for those who left yeshivah; the establishment in 1967 of an annual limit of 800 exemptions; and the removal of numerical limits by the Begin government in 1977.
This history supports the distinction drawn in the letter between the limited original arrangement and the later development of a mass, effectively community-wide exemption.
[6] Chareidi and Yeshivah Participation During the War of Independence
Nati Gabbay, “The Haredi Soldiers Who Served in Israel’s War of Independence,” National Library of Israel, July 9, 2024.
The article draws upon archival documents and describes Gdud Tuvia, in which yeshivah students performed fortification work in besieged Jerusalem while continuing their Torah studies. It also discusses the agreement under which exceptional students received exemptions while other yeshivah students participated in the war effort under religiously appropriate conditions.
[7] Rav Chaim Kanievsky During the War of Independence
“Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, 94, Revered Torah Authority,” Chabad.org, March 21, 2022.
This biography states that Rav Chaim, then a twenty-year-old student at the Lomza Yeshivah in Petach Tikvah, was drafted during the War of Independence and served near Jaffa.
See also: “The Life of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, zt”l,” Aish.com, March 2022.
[8] Economic Sanctions and Their Possible Effect
Yohanan Plesner and Gilad Malach, “The Dramatic High Court Ruling on Economic Sanctions Against Haredi Draft Evaders,” Israel Democracy Institute, April 28, 2026.
The authors argue that existing economic consequences contributed to an increase in Chareidi enlistment from approximately 1,700 to approximately 2,800 during the preceding year. They also emphasize that sanctions alone are unlikely to produce a broad transformation without appropriate military frameworks, comprehensive legislation, and a change in the position of Chareidi communal leadership.
[9] Anti-Draft Demonstrations and Mainstream Chareidi Leadership
For the cancellation of a major planned demonstration after opposition from Rav Dov Landau, following earlier approval associated with Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, see: “Massive Haredi Anti-Draft Protest Planned for This Week Said Canceled,” The Times of Israel, June 2026.
For the breadth of participation in the October 2025 mass anti-draft rally, see: Shira Silkoff, Charlie Summers, and Sam Sokol, “Roadblocks and School Closures: What to Expect During Thursday’s Haredi Anti-Draft Rally,” The Times of Israel, October 30, 2025.
For statements by spiritual leaders associated with Shas and Degel HaTorah urging Military Police personnel not to participate in arrests of draft evaders, and for reports of Chareidi political leaders visiting jailed evaders, see: Sam Sokol, “Haredi Spiritual Leaders: Those Who Arrest Draft Dodgers Could Face Divine Retribution,” The Times of Israel, February 10, 2026.
[10] Proposed Basic Law: Torah Study
Benjamin Porat and Shlomit Ravitsky Tur-Paz, “Explainer: Basic Law: Torah Study and Its Implications,” Israel Democracy Institute, June 10, 2026.
The article reproduces the original proposal’s provision that those undertaking long-term Torah study would be considered, regarding their “rights and obligations,” as performing meaningful service for the State of Israel and the Jewish people. The authors explain why they believe that the provision was intended to provide constitutional support for continued exemptions and protection from economic consequences.
For the revised bill, after removal of the explicit provision equating Torah study with meaningful service, see: “House Committee Approves Basic Law Proposal: Torah Study for Final Readings,” Knesset, July 11, 2026.
See also: “Haredi Parties Give a Little Ground: Basic Law Won’t Explicitly Put Torah Study on Par with IDF Service,” The Times of Israel, July 9, 2026.
[11] Basic Law: The Military
Knesset, Basic Law: The Military — unofficial English translation.
The Basic Law establishes the legal status of the IDF, its subordination to civilian authority, its command structure, and the principle that military-service obligations are prescribed by law. It does not declare military service, equality in bearing the burden, or national sacrifice to be foundational constitutional values.
[12] Rav Yaakov Medan’s Criticism of the Proposed Basic Law
Rav Yaakov Medan, “חוק גדוש בחילול השם” — “A Law Replete with Chillul Hashem,” Arutz Sheva, June 9, 2026.
This is Rav Medan’s own article, not a journalistic summary. Rav Medan states that he has no objection to recognizing Torah study as a foundational Jewish value or to encouraging Torah learning. His objection is to the provision treating long-term Torah study as equivalent to meaningful national service.
He writes that he cannot recall another law in Israeli history so “filled with chillul Hashem, degradation of Torah, and distortion of Torah,” and argues that Torah study does not exempt a person from the obligations commanded by the Torah, including the obligation to defend fellow Jews from an enemy seeking to destroy them.
[13] Legal Basis of the Supreme Court Decisions
Suzie Navot, “A Sharp, Unequivocal, and Unanimous Supreme Court Decision to Draft Haredim,” Israel Democracy Institute, June 26, 2024.
The analysis explains that the June 25, 2024 ruling did not decide the ultimate merits of every possible future exemption law. Rather, the Court held unanimously that, after expiration of the previous statutory arrangement, the government lacked legal authority simply to decline to apply the Defense Service Law to Chareidi yeshivah students.
For a broader historical review of the Court’s previous decisions concerning equality and the effectiveness of earlier legislative arrangements, see: Yuval Shany and Mirit Lavi, “Development of the Haredi Exemption Law,” Israel Democracy Institute, March 7, 2024.
For an independent legal summary of the later enforcement ruling, see: Library of Congress, “Israel: High Court Imposes Sanctions on Individual Haredi Men Avoiding Draft,” Global Legal Monitor, July 1, 2026.
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