Despite the outbreak of war with Iran, and the consequent pausing of most parliamentary activity, the Knesset’s ultra-Orthodox parties have reportedly continued pushing for the advancement of legislation exempting yeshiva students from military service.

According to the Behadrei Haredim news site, the Shas and Degel HaTorah factions urged Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee legal adviser Miri Frenkel Shor on Sunday to finalize the text of the controversial bill so that it can be advanced to a final vote as soon as the Knesset ceases operating on a limited emergency footing.

The latest version of the bill, drafted by committee chairman Boaz Bismuth of Likud, would codify blanket exemptions from military service for full-time yeshiva students, while setting modest conscription targets for Haredi men as a whole. It is currently undergoing revisions by Frenkel Shor in preparation for a committee vote to advance it to its final two readings in the plenum, after which it would be enacted.

The bill has come under fire from IDF brass, the attorney general, and a wide array of other critics, who have objected to it on the grounds that it is full of loopholes, preserves inequality in the mandatory draft, and will not increase Haredi enlistment amid what the military says is a manpower shortage.

The Haredi parties’ demand came days after the Maariv daily reported that Frenkel Shor had presented them with a draft containing all of her proposed changes, many of which have generated intense pushback from Haredi figures over the past two months.

A similar demand for Frenkel Shor’s final draft of the bill was reportedly made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition last month, prior to the outbreak of the war.

“The Knesset is currently only holding discussions related to the war and the budget [but] as soon as the Knesset returns to routine, we will return to the discussions; the draft is ready,” a spokeswoman for Bismuth told The Times of Israel on Thursday.

Asked if there were any ongoing discussions outside the committee framework, the spokeswoman replied that she was “not aware of anything like that. Phone calls from a distance at most. We were supposed to hold the hearing today, if not for the [military] operation.”

Apparently contradicting the spokeswoman, a senior official from the Hasidic Agudat Yisrael faction told The Times of Israel on Thursday that Degel HaTorah and Shas were still attempting to reach an agreed-upon draft of the bill.

Degel HaTorah and Agudat Yisrael together comprise the larger Haredi United Torah Judaism party.

Frenkel Shor has previously warned that the bill violates the principle of equality and fails to meet security needs. She has also called to reexamine a clause ending sanctions at age 26 on those who do not enlist, and argued that by effectively resetting the status of yeshiva students who ignored call-up orders over the past two years, the legislation would grant legal immunity to Haredim but not to non-Haredi evaders.

A main area of disagreement, Channel 13 reported, is Frenkel Shor’s demand to install fingerprint readers in yeshivas to ensure that students who receive deferrals are actually studying and not merely using their status to avoid military service.

Haredi leaders have framed the use of fingerprint readers, originally proposed by former committee chairman Yuli Edelstein, as humiliating Torah scholars while Frenkel Shor countered that some yeshivas already use biometric identification.

Some 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged between 18 and 24 are currently believed to be eligible for military service, but have not enlisted. During the course of the war in Gaza, the IDF repeatedly told lawmakers that it lacked 12,000 troops due to the strain of the conflict and other military challenges. Despite that conflict being halted, the military maintains that it is still short of regular service troops.

Another key sticking points has been Frenkel Shor’s opposition to a clause in the bill allowing an advisory committee to lower recruitment targets should its members feel that insufficient Haredi-oriented tracks have been established in the IDF. Haredi lawmakers have also objected to Frenkel Shor’s call to pass the law “as a temporary provision for a maximum period of five years.”

A Haredi political source told The Times of Israel last month that the Haredim have backed away from some of their demands and agreed to allow the bill to pass as a temporary measure. At the same time, the oversight committee would be allowed to function, but its recommendations would not be obligatory, and it would not be allowed to lower enlistment targets.

According to Behadrei Haredim, Shas chairman Aryeh Deri has called on Prime Minister Netanyahu to advance the legislation as written despite Frenkel Shor’s objections, a move which many observers believe would significantly decrease the bill’s already slim chances of passing judicial review necessary for enactment.

Spokespeople for Shas and Degel HaTorah did not respond to requests for comment.

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UTJ United Torah Judaism party

Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee

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