Traffic in Israel was disrupted in much of the country on June 24 due to ultra-Orthodox protests. It took me well over an hour to drive from my suburban Tel Aviv apartment to work in south Tel Aviv, although I was nowhere near the protests – which took the form of slowly moving motorcades heading toward a military prison at Beit Lid, in the center of the country. The protest was sparked by efforts by the Israeli army to draft ultra-Orthodox men and the incarceration at Beit Lid of some who had evaded the draft.
Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, recognized the importance of reviving Torah study among the scholars who survived the Holocaust and came to Israel. In the middle of the War of Independence, he arranged for an exemption from military service for 400 yeshiva students. As of 2024, the number of yeshiva students in Israel exceeded 60,000.
In March 2024, after the Supreme Court had already ruled that the exemption for ultra-Orthodox men violated the principle of equality, a government-issued exemption on the subject also expired, meaning that the yeshiva students were subject to the draft. This came against the backdrop of the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and seething anger among many Israelis that while other Israelis were serving in the army and dying in the country’s defense, ultra-Orthodox draft-age men were avoiding military service.
Israel’s two ultra-Orthodox parties are demanding the passage of two laws by the Knesset before it recesses on July 17. One would halt the arrests of the yeshiva students. The other is a basic law – which has semi-constitutional status and would normally be deliberated at length before passage. It would enshrine Torah study as of fundamental national value – an apparent attempt to get around the Supreme Court and provide a legal basis for continued draft exemptions.
There’s also a bigger issue here. Israel’s ultra-Orthodox leadership is fighting an uphill battle to shield the community, which constitutes roughly 15 percent of the Israeli population, from modern, secularizing influences. Military service is perhaps the greatest threat in that regard, as they would see it.
The current situation is unsustainable for Israel as a country. Economists and educators warn that the country is heading for disaster because government policy has fostered an entire generation of ultra-Orthodox males who have attended schools where they aren’t taught core subjects such as science, math and English. They’re unemployable in a modern economy.
It’s as if the ultra-Orthodox community were exterritorial – set apart from Israeli society and Israeli law. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when Israel essentially shut down, some ultra-Orthodox institutions remained open, in blatant disregard of the law – resulting in unnecessary deaths. The situation was similar in the ultra-Orthodox Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak in the two major rounds of fighting between Israel and Iran over the past year.
There had been a prevalent view, endorsed by the late ultra-Orthodox religious scholar Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, that religious observance would protect the suburb – until it didn’t. There was massive destruction in Bnei Brak in an Iranian missile attack in June of last year and more damage this spring.
“Rabbi Kanievsky protected us, and now something has changed,” one Bnei Brak resident told Haaretz after last year’s attack. “You have to understand – the Holy One Blessed Be He isn’t working with us.”
Something must indeed change. Bnei Brak and the Israeli ultra-Orthodox community need to be brought into the country’s mainstream (with all the challenges that this presents to an ultra-Orthodox leadership attempting to preserve the community’s religious identity). Israeli democracy and the country’s economy will be hobbled until this happens.
Cliff Savren is a former Clevelander who covers the Middle East from Ra’anana, Israel. He is an editor at the English edition of Haaretz.