Drafting the ultra-Orthodox isn’t a magic bullet

Every time I come home from another round of reserve duty, I hear the same question: “When are they finally going to draft the Haredim?” The question usually comes from a place of genuine frustration. After hundreds of days in uniform, I understand that frustration better than most. But I also know something many people do not want to hear: even if every draft-eligible Haredi enlisted tomorrow morning, my reserve service would not get any shorter.

There is a growing sense of anger toward Israel’s Haredi community. Every day we hear another story about exhausted reservists returning for yet another round of duty while tens of thousands of Haredi men remain exempt from military service. The media fuels this anger, politicians capitalize on it, and the public has increasingly accepted a simple narrative: draft the Haredim, and the burden on everyone else will finally ease.

The frustration is understandable. The conclusion is not.

Much of the public conversation revolves around “the reservists,” but even that term has become misleading. Most Israelis are not serving in the reserves. Less than 10 percent of Israel’s eligible population performs reserve duty at all. An even smaller percentage, well under 5% of the eligible population, serves as combat reservists. These are the men and women carrying the overwhelming responsibility for Israel’s security. They are the ones spending months away from their families, leaving businesses behind, missing birthdays, and returning to the front deployment after deployment.

They deserve relief.

But we also owe them honesty.

Imagine that tomorrow morning every draft-eligible Haredi citizen reported to the induction center ready to serve.

What happens next?

Nothing.

Not because they are unwilling, but because the Israel Defense Forces simply cannot absorb them overnight.

The army would have to create roughly three new combat divisions. That means recruiting and training thousands of commanders, building training frameworks, expanding bases, purchasing equipment, creating logistics networks, and establishing entirely new operational formations. Combat soldiers cannot simply be produced overnight. Even after completing training, they require years of experience before they become the backbone of Israel’s fighting force.

Building that capacity would likely take at least five to 10 years.

More importantly, the very reservists hoping for relief would spend those years doing exactly what they are doing today while the rest of the army recruits, trains, and integrates this new generation of soldiers. An 18-year-old does not become a combat-ready soldier overnight. Until that generation gains the experience needed to replace today’s fighters, the experienced reservist will remain the backbone of the IDF.

And that is only the military side of the equation.

The Haredi exemption is not merely a legal issue. It is the product of more than 100 years of social, religious, and cultural development. Entire educational systems, family expectations, rabbinic leadership, and economic structures have evolved around a different model of public service. Even if the law changed tomorrow, transforming that culture would take decades, not months.

None of this is an argument against Haredi service.

Quite the opposite.

Israel absolutely needs to integrate far more Haredim into military and national service. The current model is unsustainable both economically and socially. But pretending that doing so will solve today’s reserve crisis is simply dishonest. It promises immediate relief that cannot realistically be delivered.

In fact, it is precisely because integrating the Haredi community is so important that we must stop pretending it can be achieved with one law or one Supreme Court ruling. Sustainable change requires building institutions, changing incentives, and creating a culture in which service becomes the norm rather than the exception.

The real discussion should be much broader.

Rather than focusing only on military service, Israel needs to rethink the relationship between contribution and national priorities.

There are two fundamental ways citizens contribute to the strength of a nation: through service and through economic productivity.

Some serve in uniform. Others contribute through national service. Millions contribute by working, building businesses, creating jobs, and paying taxes. A strong society depends on both.

The role of government should be to encourage both forms of contribution. As a general principle, once Israelis reach adulthood, national benefits and government support should increasingly reflect what each citizen contributes. Those who both serve and pay taxes should receive the highest priority. Those who contribute significantly in one of those areas should come next. Whatever support remains should be directed toward those who choose neither. Our national priorities should reflect our national contributions.

This is not about punishing one sector.

It is not about whether we need a bigger stick or a bigger carrot.

It is not even primarily about national unity.

It is about pragmatically changing a reality that has existed for close to a century. Real societal change requires long-term thinking, consistent incentives, and policies that reshape behavior over generations rather than chasing headlines or political victories.

That is perhaps the greatest lesson of this war. Israel has spent decades treating manpower as something that could be generated on demand. October 7 shattered that illusion. Armies are built years before wars begin, not after they have already started. The decisions we make today about recruitment, service, incentives, and national priorities will not meaningfully change the manpower available for the current war. But they will determine whether Israel is prepared for the next one.

Israel’s reserve soldiers deserve immediate solutions to the burden they carry today, and those solutions exist. They begin with adopting a more aggressive military doctrine, recognizing that the best defense is often a strong offense that shortens wars rather than prolonging them. They include bringing back into the reserve system the more than 10,000 combat-trained soldiers who were released before the age of 40, investing in modern equipment and technology that makes reserve service both more effective and less burdensome, and restoring mandatory service to three years instead of the current two years and eight months. None of these measures is a silver bullet, but together they could meaningfully reduce the burden carried by today’s reservists. Each deserves a much deeper discussion, and I will address them individually in a future post.

The question is not whether Israel should draft the Haredim.

It should.

The question is whether we are serious enough to solve a hundred-year-old problem, or whether we would rather keep pretending it can be fixed by tomorrow morning.