Students at flagship Jerusalem yeshiva dismiss danger of arrest as IDF cracks down

Standing outside Jerusalem’s Mir Yeshiva on Wednesday afternoon, Aryeh appeared relaxed, his demeanor at odds with the increasingly apocalyptic rhetoric of his community’s rabbinic leadership, which this week declared “war” against the government’s efforts to crack down on draft evasion.

Wearing the standard yeshiva student’s uniform of black pants, white button-down shirt, and velvet kippa, Aryeh dismissed concerns that he could be arrested for ignoring conscription orders.

“There are those who are a little bit worried, but I’m okay,” he said, insisting that the recent arrests of several Haredi draft evaders have not affected students at his yeshiva.

“They won’t enlist. They are standing strong,” he said, adding that even the creation of new ultra-Orthodox military units has not changed yeshiva students’ calculus because they are beholden to the orders of the so-called Gedolei Yisrael (Sages of Israel) — the community’s senior rabbinic leadership.

Affiliated with the so-called Lithuanian branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, Mir Yeshiva is one of the largest and most prestigious yeshivas in the world, claiming an enrollment of over 9,000.

Usually, the yeshiva, located amid a warren of narrow streets in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim neighborhood, is a beehive of activity. But it was quiet on Wednesday when The Times of Israel visited, with most of its students away on the annual vacation known in Hebrew as bein hazmanim — which begins after the fast day of Tisha B’Av, usually sometime in mid-August, and ends three weeks later, on the first day of the Hebrew month of Elul.

Like Aryeh, Menachem (a pseudonym) dismissed the idea that the yeshiva’s students were at all concerned about the possibility of arrest, which he called a “joke.”

Last week, the IDF announced that it had completed sending out an additional 54,000 draft orders to ultra-Orthodox men who are eligible for military service and have not yet enlisted. The orders were accompanied by efforts to increase enforcement against evaders, leading to the detention of several Haredi men and sparking protests throughout the country.

Responding to the latest round of arrests, the Haredi community’s top rabbis issued a joint statement declaring that it was “forbidden to go to any military framework,” and began discussing plans for “a global struggle” against conscription.

Speaking with The Times of Israel outside of the Mir on Wednesday afternoon, Menachem said that he had received an enlistment order from the IDF but that, in keeping with the instructions of the rabbis, he had done “nothing” and was ready to go to prison for his beliefs.

Asked what he would do if the Military Police showed up at his door, he replied that he would recite Psalms “and if I go to jail nothing will happen.”

“Every day in the Shema [prayer] I say that I am ready to die for the sanctification of God’s name and [this is] much less than that,” he declared, comparing Israeli authorities to the ancient Persians and Greeks, whose failed persecution of the Jews is celebrated every year during Purim and Hanukkah.

As for the politics surrounding the issue — including the Haredi Shas and United Torah Judaism parties’ efforts to pass a law exempting him and his friends from military service — that is the rabbis’ business and not his concern, Menachem contended.

Despite its best efforts, the IDF has fallen short of its goal of 4,800 Haredi recruits during the 2024-2025 draft cycle, with only 1,539 out of 24,000 summoned last year actually reporting for duty.

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 standing and reserve forces amid the ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza and other military challenges. Overall, around 2,700 Haredim in total joined the army over the past year.

Preparing for ‘war’

“I think the picture is less clear than it’s being presented,” even though in general those involved in the issue on a political level are more “excited” than those learning in yeshiva, explained Gilad Malach, a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute who focuses on the Haredi community.

“The truth is that even at Mir, there are people who feel differently” about the issue, and when speaking with the press, students will purposefully present “the official line that they’re not worried or bothered and everything is fine.”

Indeed, while some “mainstream” yeshiva students are set on remaining disconnected and focusing only on Torah, more have taken a more active role, including taking part in rallies, including those last week during which demonstrators blocked the entrance to Jerusalem and caused disruptions on Route 4 near Bnei Brak, at the Shilat Junction near Modiin and in Beit Shemesh and Petah Tikva.

On Thursday afternoon, plans for another large Haredi protest near Bnei Brak led police to announce the closure of Route 4 where it skirts the Haredi city east of Tel Aviv.

As police worked to remove the demonstrators, they could be heard screaming “Nazis, Nazis.” Others were filmed burning their draft orders.

מול המצלמות: המפגינים שורפים צווי גיוס pic.twitter.com/YKNHrkxW48

— דניאל גרובייס daniel grovais (@daniel_grovais) August 7, 2025

Earlier Thursday, UTJ MK Meir Porush arrived at the Justice Ministry to protest the arrest of yeshiva students, declaring in a statement that he intends to move his office’s activities to a spot outside the ministry and to forgo food for nine hours a day.

“I cannot sit comfortably in my office when the military is roaming around at night and arresting yeshiva students,” he said. “It is my duty as a public representative to express our protest against the measures demanded by the attorney general. If the persecution of Torah students does not stop, it will lead to disaster for the people of Israel.”

New stage of the struggle

Asked what declaring war means on a practical level, a senior Haredi political source told The Times of Israel that, in his opinion, the entire Haredi community “has now become the Jerusalem Faction,” referring to an extremist ultra-Orthodox group that regularly holds raucous demonstrations against the enlistment of yeshiva students.

As part of its campaign against conscription, the Jerusalem Faction recently established a dedicated hotline to mobilize protesters in the wake of arrests.

Even with the radicalization of the Haredi discourse, last month several students at the prominent “Lithuanian” Wolfson Yeshiva enlisted in the IDF, generating intense condemnation among the yeshiva’s rabbis.

In footage aired by Channel 13, Rabbi Chaim Aharon Kaufman, the head of the Vaad HaYeshivot (Yeshiva Committee), could be heard, in an apparent response to small-scale Haredi enlistment, suggesting that more “modern” Haredi immigrants from abroad were “problematic,” and that their expulsion from yeshivas should be considered lest they influence other students.

The committee has long served as the Haredi community’s primary vehicle for coordination between ultra-Orthodox yeshivas and the Defense Ministry in matters of service deferments. It also runs a telephone hotline that actively advises yeshiva students to ignore enlistment orders.

And despite the strong language being bandied about by Haredi politicians and rabbis, a source close to Rabbi Dov Lando, the spiritual leader of the Degel HaTorah faction of the larger United Torah Judaism party, told The Times of Israel on Thursday that no final decisions as to strategy have been made and that “everything is open.”

While an overall strategy has yet to be formulated, members of the Haredi community have begun independently offering incentives to students to stay in yeshiva, including a raffle organized by the Jerusalem Faction in which evaders are eligible to win prizes worth thousands of shekels.

In addition, the Walla news site reported that stores in the Haredi city of Modiin Illit have begun offering price reductions to yeshiva students who have received draft orders and have not enlisted.