With only 2% of Haredim heeding IDF draft orders, Liberman urges action against leaders

As new figures showed almost all ultra-Orthodox men called up for military service in recent months have declined to do so, a senior opposition lawmaker called on police Wednesday to enforce laws prohibiting the encouragement of draft evasion against senior leaders in the Haredi community.

Yisrael Beytenu party chairman Avigdor Liberman’s accusations were directed against former Sephardic chief rabbi Yitzhak Yosef and Rabbi Dov Lando, the chairman of the Degel HaTorah party’s ruling Council of Torah Sages, among others. Alongside the Hasidic Agudat Yisrael, Degel Hatorah is one of two factions making up the coalition’s United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party.

Lando, the 94-year old spiritual leader of the so-called Lithuanian stream of ultra-Orthodoxy, “ordered yeshiva students not to report to recruitment offices,” while Yosef “called for draft orders to be torn up and thrown down the toilet,” Liberman tweeted — adding that “at the same time, dozens of demonstrations and calls for evasion are taking place” in the ultra-Orthodox community.

Citing clauses in the Israeli penal code stipulating that a person inciting others to evade service during wartime is liable to a prison term of 15 years, Liberman called on law enforcement “to act in accordance with the law, and not to evade its enforcement.”

Asked if Liberman planned on submitting criminal complaints to the police, his spokeswoman replied that he was “calling on the government to act according to the law.”

Responding to the Soviet-born Liberman, UTJ MK Yaakov Asher suggested that “if difficulties arise for the Israel Police in enforcing the matter, it would be possible to use the good services of the KGB.”

No other ultra-Orthodox lawmakers responded to Liberman, with one Haredi political figure, speaking on condition of anonymity, telling The Times of Israel that “we have no interest in adding fuel to the fire of Liberman hatred.”

The Haredi community’s leadership is vehemently opposed to young Haredi men serving in the military, fearing they will be secularized.

According to IDF figures published Wednesday, out of 10,000 ultra-Orthodox men who received enlistment notices since last summer, only 205, just over two percent, have actually enlisted.

‘We’ll all move abroad’

Last March, then-chief rabbi Yosef suggested that ultra-Orthodox Jews will leave Israel en masse if the government ended sweeping exemptions from mandatory military enlistment enjoyed by the community.

“If you force us to go to the army, we’ll all move abroad,” Yosef said, before backtracking and accusing his critics of “distorted my words.”

In an open letter published on the front page of Degel HaTorah mouthpiece Yated Ne’eman last Friday, Rabbi Lando issued a series of instructions aimed at minimizing contact between members of his community and the armed forces.

According to Lando, yeshiva students are forbidden from speaking with military representatives. Those who have been declared draft dodgers and are liable to arrest must avoid any contact with the authorities and those looking to travel abroad must first clarify their status with the Vaad HaYeshivot (Yeshiva Committee) — the Haredi community’s primary vehicle for coordination between ultra-Orthodox yeshivas and the Defense Ministry in matters of service deferments.

A recent Times of Israel investigation found that the committee, on whose board Lando sits, has been advising yeshiva students who contact its advice line to “not report under any circumstances and not cooperate” with the authorities.

In his letter, Lando instructed evaders who fail to avoid an encounter with the police to seek advice from Shlomo Brilant, a municipal-level Degel HaTorah politician from Beit Shemesh whose “Lema’ancha” (for your sake) hotline was recently established on Lando’s orders.

In a flyer circulated among Haredi WhatsApp groups last month, Lema’ancha also instructed yeshiva students not to report to the IDF recruitment bureau “for any reason.”

In February, the ultra-Orthodox Kikar HaShabbat website quoted Lando as saying that the Jewish people are protected by the study of yeshiva students and that national-religious Jews who fell in battle had been killed “because their rabbis teach them a distorted Torah.”

An ecosystem of evasion

Since the High Court of Justice’s ruling last June, multiple initiatives affiliated with various Haredi factions have sprung up to guide them through their new post-exemption reality — and encourage them to disregard IDF enlistment orders.

These include an advice line linked to Jerusalem Affairs Minister Meir Porush, which a recent Times of Israel investigation found was counseling callers to “just ignore” summonses to the IDF’s recruitment bureau.

The Israel Police and the attorney general appear to have failed to crack down on these groups, despite multiple demands for investigation by advocacy groups following the issue.

“Unfortunately, it seems like despite appeals from a variety of parties, including members of Knesset, civil society organizations and more — the police and the attorney general are currently refusing to open a criminal investigation, despite what appears to be a solid evidentiary foundation,” attorney and Movement for Quality Government deputy director Tomer Naor told The Times of Israel in March.

In a statement Wednesday, the movement said “the data presented today highlights the blatant violation of the High Court ruling and the systematic disregard for the law. The current conduct, in which only a few draft orders are sent without significant enforcement, is in fact a continuation of the illegal policy of blanket exemption for the Haredi public.”

The statement called on the defense minister to stop enabling this mass evasion and to impose significant penalties on draft dodgers.

“The Israeli government must comply with the High Court ruling and issue draft orders to all 80,000 Haredi youth, who are required to serve in the military,” it said.

Ignoring orders

Addressing the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Wednesday afternoon, Lt. Col. Avigdor Dickstein, head of the Haredi branch of the IDF’s Personnel Directorate, said that only 2% of all the ultra-Orthodox men who have been called up for service since the High Court struck down their exemptions from military service last year have actually joined the Israeli army.

The IDF sent out 10,000 initial draft orders to members of the Haredi community in several waves between July 2024 and March 2025.

According to Dickstein, only 205 of those who have received orders have actually enlisted.

A total of 1,096 arrest warrants have been issued against those who ignored their second draft orders. The IDF Military Police does not plan to actually carry out arrests, but will instead wait until they are declared “draft evaders” and leave it to law enforcement.

In total, 1,721 Haredim have joined the army since the beginning of the current recruitment cycle last year. Currently, approximately 66,000 Haredi men between the ages of 18 and 24 are eligible for military service and have not enlisted.