The Context Everyone Is Ignoring About the Haredi Draft Crisis

Peloni:  Avi so well captures the context of what is taking place with the Haredi Draft Law debacle.

Avi Abelow | Meta

No, I’m not happy that most ultra-Orthodox young men do not serve in the IDF. I think it is clearly against the Torah, as service in the IDF is literally a milmechemet mitzvah, and it is morally wrong. I understand the deep concerns and cultural barriers that keep many Haredim from serving, but I am personally involved in initiatives working directly with the ultra-Orthodox community to help them overcome these challenges and serve in the IDF.

No, I also don’t support the recent laws that Haredi parties pushed through the coalition.

But I refuse to be swept up in the one-sided, anti-Haredi hysteria that dominates much of Israel’s media and public discourse.

Once again, the mainstream media has directed public rage at the ultra-Orthodox community and at Netanyahu’s government for advancing legislation that appears to shield Haredi youth from enlistment. What they deliberately refuse to explain is how we actually got here and who pushed us to this point.

The Haredi parties didn’t suddenly wake up in the morning and demand new legislation in a vacuum before new elections. They made it a condition for remaining in the coalition because aggressive actions by the Attorney General, the legal system, and a public campaign caused the promising draft bill, which could have gradually solved the issue, to collapse. (This is especially significant since the Supreme Court would almost certainly have struck it down anyway, just as it has invalidated every previous draft law passed by the Knesset — further highlighting the Court’s own major responsibility for creating and perpetuating this crisis, also conveniently ignored in daily reporting on the issue.)

Instead, the Attorney General and the police began aggressive enforcement against Ultra-Orthodox yeshiva aged students and their families, never implemented before, including street arrests, drastic funding cuts, and criminal sanctions.

The Ultra-Orthodox leadership felt they had no choice but to demand legislative protection after the draft bill collapsed. Like it or not, that’s the context.

We can all disagree with these laws being passed, but focusing on the anger without the context and understanding why, is the successful culmination of the left’s cynical hijacking of a very real societal issue that must be solved, especially for the Ultra-Orthodox who want to be freed of the control the Rabbis and communities force upon them stopping them from integrating more into Israel society.

What is almost never reported is that the imperfect draft law in the works represented a genuine historic breakthrough. For the first time, leading Haredi rabbis were willing to support a framework that would gradually increase enlistment numbers and break their own stranglehold over the community that prevents broader Ultra-Orthodox integration into Israeli society.

No, the bill wasn’t perfect. But real societal revolutions don’t start with ideal solutions, they begin with the first meaningful step forward. And this imperfect bill was precisely that: a major breakthrough that would have enabled thousands of ultra-Orthodox young men to serve in the IDF and for the greater community to integrate into Israeli society with the explicit blessing and permission of their rabbinic leaders.

Instead of being given this crucial context, the Israeli public has been fed a constant daily diet of hatred toward the ultra-Orthodox community and toward the politicians who supported the original draft bill because it wasn’t “good enough”, which then pushed the Ultra-Orthodox parties to push for these recent laws to pass.

Like it or not, after the failure to pass the original draft law, Netanyahu and his coalition were forced into difficult long-term political calculations. They ultimately conceded to the Haredi parties’ demands for the recent legislation in order to preserve the coalition-block ahead of the upcoming elections,even though they knew it would anger large parts of their own voter base.

Short-term politics would have pushed them to vote against these bills. Instead, they chose the longer view. That’s actually a good thing.

Here is more context of this issue conveniently ignored in the daily reporting…

Soon after October 7, thousands of Haredim tried to enlist in the IDF. The IDF sent most of them away. How many of you heard about that in the mainstream media?

Also after Oct. 7, Haredi soldiers already serving in the IDF in began to be celebrated in parts of their own Uotra-Ortgidox communities, finally proudly wearing the IDF uniform in the streets of hardcore Hareidi communities, instead of taking them off out of fear of being ostracized. That was a profound cultural shift. This also is conveniently being ignored in all reporting on the issue.

But then, in the middle of the war, politics poisoned everything, and turned the situation around making it worse than before.

Opposition leaders, especially Yair Lapid, the mainstream media, and massive advertising campaigns viciously attacked the draft bill being worked on in the Knesset, creating a hateful atmosphere that caused the entire Haredi community to retreat under siege and once again step back from the promising initial public support of IDF service.

Massive, well-funded advertising campaign, under various new-named organizations, was launched in national-religious media, targeting any politician who dared support the draft bill. This relentless advertising offensive incited hatred not only against the bill, but against the entire ultra-Orthodox community. Shockingly, there was almost no public scrutiny into the sources of the funding behind this day-after-day, week-after-week media campaign targeting the National-religious public that has continued for nearly two years.

At the same time, videos have surfaced showing prominent leftist protest leader attorney Ayelet Hashachar Seidof proudly taking responsibility and hiring provocateurs within the community to create chaos and division inside the Haredi community over the draft issue, highlighting a highly developed strategy and work plan, in her own words, to destroy the ultra-orthodox community from within as part of the political left’s clear political agenda, clear evidence of deliberate attempts by the political left to divide the Jewish people from within when unity is most needed. She literally rhetorically asks in a recording “you think that chaos was organic”?

Adding to the cynicism is the fact that both Yair Golan and Gadi Eisenkot, leaders of politically left parties that are open to working with anti-Israel Arab parties to topple Netanyahu, have openly admitted they would not force ultra-Orthodox enlistment if they return to power. Yair Golan himself admitted in a recorded statement that this is a deep societal change that will take time, exposing that much of the public battle over the ultra-Orthodox draft law was never really about immediate conscription, but about raw politics and toppling Netanyahu.

Under this mounting pressure, the gradual process due to the war that could have increased Haredi integration into the IDF and Israeli society lost momentum, and was ultimately derailed by cynical politics disguised as a fight for “equality and equity.” This brilliantly executed strategy by the political left succeeded in turning many natural supporters of this government against it, all at the expense of Israeli unity and society.

To make matters worse, there has been virtually no public scrutiny of the political left for these efforts, while the flames of hatred toward the ultra-Orthodox community continue to be fanned.

The Attorney General then intensified enforcement, leading to arresting Ultra-Orthodox in the streets like never before, creating deeper distrust between the Ultra-Orthodox community and law enforcement, and leading to the continuous Ultra-Orthodox street protests since. (Ironically, the same media outlets that harshly condemn ultra-Orthodox street blockades as illegal and demand aggressive police action against them are the very ones that enthusiastically supported the nightly street closures by the anti-government left, while excusing the police’s repeated inaction to end them. Just some more important context that is rarely mentioned.)

Real, lasting change in Haredi society cannot be imposed by judges, prosecutors, or politicians chasing “equality” on paper, due to the passing of a law. That is naive. Real societal change requires the support, or at least the acceptance, of Ultra-Orthodox rabbinic leadership. That is simply how that community works.

Ironically, the imperfect draft law that had rabbinic backing, would have ended the rabbinic stranglehold over the community and done have done more for enlistment and societal integration over time than a more “perfect” bill.

I want to see far more Haredim serving in the IDF.

But I want it done in a way that creates real, sustainable change, not just headlines and deeper division.

The challenge is not just passing a law. It is transforming a deeply insular society while addressing its genuine concerns. That demands patience, trust, and leadership, qualities that are in short supply when the draft issue is weaponized for political gain, conveniently ignored in the public discourse on the issue.

I am confident this issue will ultimately be solved. And ironically, just as I wrote in my Jerusalem Post op-ed nearly two years ago, the day it is solved, the same voices on the political left who are weaponizing it today to topple Netanyahu will likely be the loudest ones screaming that they refuse to send their own children to serve in an IDF with growing enlistment of Ultra-Orthodox soldiers, because the army has become “too Jewish.”

Oh, the irony.

I hope this context helps better understand what is really going on.

With it all, we are still more united as a nation than ever before. Strengthen your faith. Stick with me for the truth.

Am Yisrael Chai!!!