The Game Is Over

There comes a time when the charedim can no longer hide in their yeshivot while our soldiers, including reservists in their 50’s, are fighting on all fronts to defend our country.

The days are gone since Ben Gurion exempted 400 yeshivah students from military service back in 1948 in order to strengthen their ranks after much of their world had been destroyed during the Holocaust.

There are today some 60,000 yeshivah students, who ought to be playing their part in defending our country. Study cannot be seen as a legitimate alternative to taking up arms like every other able-bodied citizen.

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara said this Thursday that legislation being formulated to deal with the issue of charedi enlistment must include sanctions against draft dodgers. She warned Defense Minister Israel Katz against trying to pass a bill that did not account for Israel’s changed security needs following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 onslaught.

Since then approximately 1,000 soldiers have been wounded on average every month and some 800 soldiers have been killed. Reservists are being called upon repeatedly to leave their families and their occupations at consider personal cost.

The charedim can no longer be allowed to be spectators. Of course, there are some charedim who have been drafted into the IDF, but they are a small fraction of those who should be serving our country.

The status quo is going to have to change. Unfortunately, coalition governments are dependent upon the support of the charedi parties, but increasingly large numbers of Israelis are asking themselves why they should put their lives at risk when tens of thousands of charedim are not sharing the burden.

It is difficult to envisage a situation in which military police will enter Bnei Brak and Me’ah She’arim to arrest draft absconders. The only way forward is going to be, as Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has suggested, by legislating sanctions against them.

It may take the form of freezing funds that support the yeshivot or cutting off financial support for their institutions and their families. It could even require problematic legislation barring draft dodgers from voting in Israel’s elections.

Either way, the current situation is going to have to change in order to give the IDF the number of soldiers that it requires and prevent a social revolution that cannot be in the interests of anyone.