Defense Minister Israel Katz will present his long-awaited proposal for ultra-Orthodox military conscription to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday next week, a spokesman for committee chairman Yuli Edelstein announced Thursday.
The minister’s proposed compromise bill will contain “principles for achieving the goal of a significant increase in the number of yeshiva students serving” in the Israel Defense Forces, and also anchor in law the status of the full-time yeshiva students who will remain exempt from enlistment.
The government, at the behest of the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties, is attempting to pass a bill that would see some increased enlistment of Haredi men, but would broadly maintain the decades-long, wide-scale exemption of the community from military or national service.
However, legislation dealing with the issue is currently stuck in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, with Edelstein insisting that the needs of the IDF must come first and that the panel will only advance the legislation if lawmakers can reach “broad consensus” on the matter.
During a meeting of the committee last month, Katz called for annual recruitment targets within what he termed a reasonable range, playing up the idea that half of eligible draftees could end up serving, while the rest continue studying in yeshivas. In response, Edelstein warned against any attempt to bypass his committee on the issue of ultra-Orthodox enlistment.
“It seems that the picture is becoming clearer. The defense minister is determined to bring an evasion law that will please the Haredim and keep them in the coalition,” Yesh Atid MK Moshe Tur-Paz, an opposition representative on the committee, told The Times of Israel on Thursday.
MK Moshe Tur-Paz speaks during a Finance committee meeting at the Knesset, February 23, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
“The masks are coming off. I very, very much hope that the members of Knesset who said that they would insist on a real conscription law will continue to insist on this. In any case, I do not intend to be fooled by the words of the defense minister, and it is clear to me that the danger is that he will try to bring in something that is not real — and we will fight it in every way we can,” Tur-Paz added
Katz’s reported plan appears at odds with recent statements by the military suggesting it will be ready to absorb tens of thousands of new ultra-Orthodox recruits in the coming years.
Starting in 2026, there will be no limit to the number of Haredi servicemen the Israel Defense Forces has the capacity to enlist, the state told the High Court of Justice on Wednesday morning.
The IDF currently has the capacity to absorb 4,800 Haredim in the 2024 enlistment year ending this coming June, and around 5,700 in 2025, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara wrote in the state’s response to multiple petitions calling for all eligible ultra-Orthodox males — who until now have been largely exempt from the mandatory draft — to be conscripted.
According to multiple Hebrew media reports, Katz attempted to delay the filing of the state’s response in order to remove this assessment.
The figures quoted by the attorney general were consistent with those provided to lawmakers in the Knesset State Control Committee by Brig. Gen. Shay Tayeb, head of the IDF Personnel Directorate’s Planning and Personnel Management Division, during a hearing on Tuesday.
Maj. Gen. David Zini, the head of the IDF’s Training Command, greets an ultra-Orthodox soldier drafting to the IDF’s new Haredi brigade, known as the Hasmonean Brigade, January 5, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)
Going forward, “there will be tens of thousands of members of the ultra-Orthodox community under orders,” Tayeb said on Tuesday, also calling for stronger sanctions on draft dodgers.
Asked about the plan, United Torah Judaism MK Moshe Roth said that while he hadn’t seen a draft, “there are many variables” that could affect how his party responds to Katz’s proposal.
Roth also said that in any case, “it’s a question for the Council of Torah Sages,” referring to the rabbis who control the ultra-Orthodox party.
A spokesman for MK Moshe Gafni, who heads UTJ’s Degel Hatorah faction, declined to comment, while a spokesman for party chairman and Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf did not respond to an inquiry from The Times of Israel.
Two members of Goldknopf’s Hasidic Agudat Yisrael faction abstained from voting on a critical budget-related bill last week, while another voted against it last week in an effort to pressure Netanyahu to push the enlistment legislation forward.
Ahead of the vote, Netanyahu was said to have called Goldknopf to promise that he would make sure it advanced.
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