The government is trying to pass a law that basically preserves the current situation and allows ultra-Orthodox men to evade military service. This is a moral disgrace, and with the State of Israel engaged in a war that is emerging as close in significance to the 1948 War of Independence, it is no less than an outrage.
While the recruitment of the ultra-Orthodox into the military clearly cannot be achieved by coercion and will require winning hearts and minds, we must begin by confronting the ultra-Orthodox rabbinical and political leadership with the tremendous fury of the majority of Jews in Israel. They are no longer willing to accept the moral distortion of distinguishing between blood and blood and are fed up with the fact that the majority of the ultra-Orthodox do not, for the most part, share the burden of defending the state.
Torah study is an important value that deserves to be cultivated by the state. But in the case of a defensive war (milhemet mitzvah), Halacha (Jewish law) mandates that even a newlywed man goes out to battle. The ultra-Orthodox public suffers from terrible halachic and moral blindness when it refuses to see that the State of Israel’s struggle for security in the Middle East is existential.
The current arrangements that free all ultra-Orthodox men from military service originate in the decision taken by Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, at the time of the establishment of the state to exempt some 400 yeshiva students from enlisting in the IDF.
Since then, the ultra-Orthodox sector has grown exponentially and today makes up some 15% of the Jewish population in Israel, and thousands of ultra-Orthodox citizens do not enlist even if they are not full-time yeshiva students.
Furthermore, the rate of natural growth of the ultra-Orthodox sector increases its weight in the population and the percentage of men whom the state allows to evade conscription.
Existential threats against Israel require draft
The multi-arena war that Iran is waging against Israel (through Hamas, Hezbollah, pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and Syria, and the Houthis) has made it clear that the pre-October 7 desire to bring the ultra-Orthodox into the labor market is insufficient. The IDF has huge manpower shortages. Ultra-Orthodox men of conscription age can no longer hide behind a page of Talmud; this is not sustainable anymore. The ongoing draft dodging by the ultra-Orthodox harms not only the country’s economy and prosperity, but its very security. In view of current and future threats, Israel must build a much larger military. One of the reasons that Israel is merely trying to contain the destruction being caused to cities, towns, and villages in the North is the lack of sufficient military power to go to war against Hezbollah while fighting in Gaza. Israel has a small population.
The moral equation that “there are no rights without duties” must be reclaimed vocally and without hesitation. In each state, as in other social organizations, there is no place for demanding civil rights without fulfilling obligations toward the state. Therefore, rights must be withheld from those who refuse to serve in the army or in civil service. It is appropriate to consider imposing sanctions on those who evade service and who have benefited from years of free education, advanced medicine, and many government services. This policy should be applied equally to Jewish and non-Jewish citizens.
It is to be regretted that the High Court ignored the moral equation by granting certain National Insurance Institute benefits to those who are not military veterans, in the name of a distorted view of the principle of equality. This immoral decision must be corrected.
On the other hand, it would be appropriate to generously reward those who serve in combat units and are willing to risk their lives for the country.
The country’s leaders must muster the moral and political courage and condition civil rights and benefits on participation in military or civil service, even if this leads to a government crisis.
The Right is making a fatal moral and political mistake by acceding to the demands of the ultra-Orthodox leadership on this issue. At the present time, the right wing’s unconditional alliance with the ultra-Orthodox parties is undermining national security and will lead to the Right losing power – and justifiably so.
The writer is the president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and head of the Strategy, Diplomacy, and National Security Program (ADIV) at the Shalem Academic Center.