Image caption: The ruling means that potentially tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews could be subject to conscription. Article information Author: Yolande Nel Position: BBC Middle East correspondent Reporting from Jerusalem
June 25, 2024
Israel’s Supreme Court has unanimously ruled in a landmark ruling that ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students must be conscripted into the army.
Young men enrolled in full-time religious studies have long been exempt from conscription, but legal arrangements allowing this practice to continue had lapsed.
The move is likely to send shock waves through Israel’s ruling coalition, which includes ultra-Orthodox Jewish (Haredi) parties.
The exemption of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men from conscription has become a more pressing social issue as the military is strained by the ongoing fighting with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“In the midst of a brutal war, the burden of inequality is greater than ever and solutions are needed,” the justices wrote.
The Israeli army is often called the “people’s army” and most Israelis, except for Israeli Arabs, are required by law to serve in the military.
The country’s Supreme Court ruling noted the recent deaths of many soldiers fighting for their country and said “discrimination against that most precious of things – life itself – is the worst kind of discrimination.”
One of the main petitioners to the court, the nonprofit group Campaign for Quality Government in Israel, welcomed the ruling, calling it a “historic victory” and calling for immediate action to be taken to recruit students to Jewish seminaries (yeshivas).
Data reviewed by the court suggested that around 63,000 ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who study Torah full-time are exempt, meaning that the ruling means they could be subject to conscription.
The court also ruled that public funding should be frozen for yeshivas whose students were trying to avoid the draft.
“We were not surprised by the verdict but we were disappointed,” lawyer Shmuel Horowitz, who represented the Yeshiva in court, told the BBC. “The courts are not the right forum to resolve these social issues.”
Asked about the reaction from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, he noted that “they are faithful to the teachings of their rabbis and are not very interested in the trial.”
He suggested there was still time for the Israeli parliament to come up with a solution to annul the court’s ruling before it adjourns at the end of July.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government relies on two ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Judaism, which have made military exemption a top priority to stay in power.
They believe that forcing voters to continue studying Torah is a way to protect the people of Israel and preserve conservative practices.
Shas party leader Arieh Deri issued a defiant statement in response to the verdict.
“There is no force on earth that can stop the people of Israel from studying Torah, and everyone who has tried to do this in the past has failed miserably,” he said.
United Jewish Leader and Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldnopf also vowed that “Holy Torah will prevail.”
If the exemption ends, ultra-Orthodox parties could walk away from the coalition, leading to the collapse of the government and the risk of new elections at a time when the popularity of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party is declining.
The prime minister had been pushing ahead with a compromise proposal put forward by the previous government in 2022 that called for limited enlistment for ultra-Orthodox Jews.
In a statement, the Likud party said the law would “significantly increase conversion rates among ultra-Orthodox Jews, create institutional financial sanctions for not meeting targets and recognize the importance of Torah study.”
But critics say the law was enacted before the war and is inadequate to address current personnel shortages in the military.
As well as maintaining a presence in the Gaza Strip, the army is preparing for a potential war with the powerful Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. It already has troops stationed in northern Israel, where gun battles are taking place almost daily across the border with Lebanon.
Over the years, there have been a series of lawsuits challenging the ultra-Orthodox exemption, with past rulings finding the system unjust, but the Supreme Court has refrained from making a final decision on yeshiva student enlistment, repeatedly leaving it to Congress, which has proven unable to legislate.
The exemption for ultra-Orthodox Jews dates back to 1949, the year after the state of Israel was founded.
At the time, there were about 400 yeshiva students in Israel. The founding fathers exempted them from military service because the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and its yeshivas had been destroyed in the Holocaust during World War II.
Modern-day Israel has seen a dramatic demographic shift: Due to high birth rates within the ultra-Orthodox community, they now make up 12% of Israel’s population.
According to the Israeli parliament’s National Control Committee, about 10 percent of ultra-Orthodox Jews enlist each year when they reach the conscription age of 18.
Special military units already exist that allow ultra-Orthodox Jewish men to serve as combatants, providing an environment suited to their religious beliefs and strict observance of halakha (Jewish religious law).
