Haredi Conscription Requires Collaboration

The Supreme Court of Israel recently ruled that the government must enforce conscription against all the Haredi persons who ignored their draft notices to date, and penalize the Haredi institutions that house those persons.  Such a mass onslaught of enforcement against a community of around 60,000 draft eligible people who consider conscription to be an existential crisis on their fundamental religious way of life, is precisely how to ensure Israeli society tears itself apart in protests and riots of the kind that led Israel’s enemies to attack on October 7, 2023.

Haredi enlistment is not a question of forceful conscription – which gives us soldiers of 0 motivation and therefore no usefulness on the battlefield — rather how to gain the Haredi community’s buy-in to cease resisting their conscription. 10% of Haredim already voluntarily enlist and polls up to 20% of this community would agree to voluntarily enlist if not for the stigma in their community against joining an army seen as outside the structure of the Haredi lifestyle.  Build on this 10-20% to bridge the country’s civil society to unity. Do not destroy this 10-20% with forced conscription.

The army must gain the trust of this strictly religious community that their halachic standards will be guarded to the letter at all times. That the questions of halacha will be resolved by the Haredi rabbinical leadership. That no one who enters the army Haredi, will have the excuse to be less than Haredi because of any dropped habits during their service because by order of the army and it’s Haredi unit commanders – all Haredi habits are to be reinforced and never be skipped or dropped.  Advertise the standards set in the Haredi battalions of the infantry.

You will learn to shoot the bullseye and you will learn the Torah every day. You will do the forced marches and you will pray three times a day with a quorum. You will learn to fight in the deserts and forests and cities and you will do it under the strictest standards of religious supervision in everything from gender separation and dietary requirements.

You will win in war of the Earth and of the soul in this Jewish State, because you are Jewish. The alternative is we ultimately collapse under the weight of our disunity and all die – Haredi and secular – at the hands of Hamas because we are Jewish.

Brothers, do not say to God when we are killed “AM I my brother’s keeper?” – We know from Cain that God does not accept such answers.

Do not say to God, we relied on miracles and therefore placed no effort in our own security. We know from the Torah, God commands the effort.