But in a country where military service is mandatory and battlefields are expanding, Israelis from across the political spectrum have demanded a change to the status quo, and on Tuesday, the Supreme Court made it official.
“In the midst of a grueling war, the burden of inequality is harsher than ever and demands a solution,” said Justice Uzi Vogelman, one of the nine judges who signed onto the ruling.
Haredi leaders expressed defiance, saying their religious studies are the spiritual backbone of the nation.
“There is no force in the world that can disconnect the people of Israel from Torah study, and anyone who has tried in the past has failed miserably,” Aryeh Deri, chairman of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, said in response to the ruling.
The ultra-Orthodox receive government subsidies for privately run schools — where some students devote their lives to studying the Torah — as well as other religious and social organizations. The community is largely autonomous and insulated from the rest of society; few members work, pay taxes or serve in the military.
With Israel now enmeshed in its longest war to date in Gaza, and a possible second war looming in Lebanon, the justices said the country can no longer afford to exempt the ultra-Orthodox from their duties as citizens. The decision follows a similar ruling by the court in March, in which it ordered a halt to state subsidies for ultra-Orthodox yeshivas where students study instead of enlisting in the military.
Michal Feuer, the mother of two soldiers, said she was “very happy” to hear news of the court’s ruling Tuesday. She and thousands like her banded together last year to create Mothers on the Front, a group devoted to fighting the ultra-Orthodox exemption.
“I’ve been against this injustice for years,” she said. “In several elections in the past, I voted for people who had that as one of their platforms.”
After Oct. 7, she said, when Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people in Israel and dragged about 250 more as hostages into Gaza, the issue “took on a whole other dimension.”
“We’ve had hundreds of soldiers killed and thousands injured, and the army needs soldiers,” she said.
Feuer’s older son, who is 21, finished his mandatory military service in April and was immediately drafted into the reserves. He spent three months in Gaza and then the past few months on the northern border with Lebanon. Her younger son, nearly 19, was on a gap year after high school doing volunteer work when he was “yanked out in the middle and drafted,” she said.
When her older son was in Gaza, she said, “there were weeks when I didn’t hear from him. You don’t know what’s happening — the feeling is you’re just waiting for that knock on the door.”
“In Hebrew, we have a saying, ‘There’s an Orthodox mother and there’s a fearful mother,’ because they don’t understand that fear.”
Israel’s grinding war in Gaza has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Troops continue to battle Hamas across the length of the enclave, and Netanyahu said this week that fighting would continue even after the end of major combat operations.
On the border with Lebanon, Israel has been exchanging deadly fire with Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants, and both sides have said they are preparing for war.
As more Israeli soldiers are killed — at least 333, according to the Israel Defense Forces — and others return home nursing physical and psychological wounds, resentment toward the Haredim has been mounting.
According to a survey by the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), a nonpartisan think tank based in Jerusalem, 81 percent of Jewish Israelis favor changing the ultra-Orthodox exemption, with 45 percent supporting “coercive” measures and 36 percent preferring “persuasive” methods.
Shuki Friedman, vice president of the JPPI, said the ultra-Orthodox now face a political dilemma.
“On the one hand, they want to prevent this disaster, from their perspective. But on the other hand, if the government will collapse and go to elections, the result might be less good and they can get even less of a compromise for their side,” he said.
Polling has consistently shown that Netanyahu would struggle to pull together a ruling coalition without the support of ultra-Orthodox parties, who have also served as critical linchpins in previous governments.
A statement Tuesday from the prime minister’s Likud party said that the Supreme Court ruling was “relevant for only a short period of time,” and that it was “strange” it issued its ruling as the government was pushing forward an older law — once rejected by the ultra-Orthodox — that would involve partial enlistment of the Haredim.
Ultra-Orthodox politicians, under Netanyahu’s leadership, will probably resort to stalling tactics to delay recruitment, said Yitzik Crombie, a Haredi activist who has worked to integrate members of the community into Israel’s high-tech sector.
“The Haredi leaders need to make a decision about if they want to be part of the Israeli society or just guests,” Crombie said. “Now, we are in a moment that is not only about destiny — after the Holocaust, we came here and we built a country — but, what is our mission?”
There are many practical considerations: how many men will be drafted, how those who refuse will be punished, and how requirements for kosher food, as well as prayer times and other daily rites, will be applied in the grueling military schedule. The IDF has said it is prepared to absorb the recruits, but their addition to the ranks is likely to test the dynamics of the “people’s army,” long venerated here as a symbol of national unity.
Israel Cohen, a commentator on the ultra-Orthodox radio station Kol Berama, said Tuesday that the community realizes it has to compromise after Oct. 7. So far, he said, it has directed its ire against the Supreme Court and not Netanyahu, allowing him a short grace period to draft a law that would accept the new reality while ensuring that the ultra-Orthodox are able to hold on to their values.
“Now it’s test time for Netanyahu to pass a law,” Cohen said. “And, if not, their support for this government disappears.”
Parker reported from Jerusalem.