After months of finagling, fine-tuning, haggling and political pressure, the government late last month finally came out with proposed legislation meant to find a way to put some ultra-Orthodox men in military uniform while giving others a pass.

If the proposal is enacted, boosters say over 30,000 Haredi men would enlist in either the army or civilian security services by 2030, an impressive-sounding achievement for a community that currently accounts for only a few thousand recruits a year.

Impressive, that is, so long as it’s not compared to the total eligible cohort of draftees, which is thought to contain more than twice that number.

And that’s before one gets into the carveouts and lower target percentages that put the actual number of army recruits by 2030 at around 21,000. That’s technically tens of thousands, but not much to write home about.

The numbers are just one aspect of a bill that critics say is chock-full of loopholes and feints, imposing ineffective sanctions that do little to encourage enlistment and enshrining policies that actively discourage societal integration, allowing politicians to look like they are addressing the issue but essentially restoring the situation to where it was before the court deemed blanket exemptions illegal.

Presented to lawmakers on November 27, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth’s latest revision of the controversial legislation lists its goal as “regulat[ing] the status of full-time yeshiva students while recognizing the importance of Torah study.”

The bill is a top demand by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s erstwhile ultra-Orthodox government partners, who are seeking a law that allows Haredi men to opt out of mandatory military service in favor of Torah study, protecting longstanding exemptions that courts and most other Israelis have sought to end.

Some 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged between 18 and 24 are currently believed to be eligible for military service but have not enlisted. The Israel Defense Forces has said it urgently needs 12,000 recruits due to the strain on its standing force and reservists against the backdrop of the war in Gaza and other military threats.

In June 2024, the High Court issued a ruling ordering the government to start conscripting Haredi men. Since then, yeshivas harboring draft dodgers have seen their budgets slashed, draft refusers have lost access to daycare subsidies for their children and other benefits, and the IDF has begun arresting small numbers of evaders, including some attempting to leave the country.

However, if passed into law, Bismuth’s bill would effectively reset the status of yeshiva students who ignored call-up orders over the past year, while yeshivas would immediately receive half of their pre-ruling funding, easing economic and legal pressure on the community.

“The Haredim will immediately regain financial support, daycare discounts, and National Insurance benefits [as well] as support for yeshivas [and the cancellation] of all........

© The Times of Israel