Israel’s chief rabbi warned on Saturday that ultra-Orthodox Jews (Haredim in Hebrew) will leave the occupied territories en masse if the regime ends the community’s exemptions from mandatory military enlistment and forces them to join the occupation army.
“If you force us to go to the army, we’ll all move abroad,” Chief Sephardic Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef says during a weekly lecture.
“We will buy tickets; there is no such thing as forcing us into the army”
Yosef’s recent remarks also drew criticism. Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, chair of the centrist Yesh Atid party, said the comment “is a disgrace and insult” to Israeli soldiers.
The young men of the Haredim are in all practical terms exempt from mandatory military service.
However, frustration grows among them as the Israeli public’s pressure increases to abolish the policy of granting a comprehensive exemption for religious school students from military service amid the regime’s five-month war on the besieged Gaza Strip and its shortages of manpower.
Last month, the Knesset passed the mandatory service bill, which needs two more readings, intending to integrate more ultra-Orthodox men into the Israeli military.
As per Israeli policy, the community is forced into military conscription, meaning they must serve in the occupation army – or else will serve time in jail.
After the passage of the bill, Israel’s Channel 12 said hundreds of Ultra-Orthodox young adults protested and blocked the roads in the occupied al-Quds.
The protesters chanted such slogans as, “We’d rather die than serve,” with Israeli media reporting intense clashes between demonstrators and Israeli forces.
Since the start of the regime’s aggression on Gaza, nearly half a million Israelis are said to have left the occupied territories.
According to the Israeli military, over the past year some 66,000 young men from the ultra-Orthodox community, the fastest-growing sector of the population, received an exemption from military service.
The military said some 540 of them decided to enlist since the war started on October 7.
In 2022, the Haredi population was some 1,280,000, about 13.3 percent of Israel’s total population, according to Israel’s official figures.
The regime has so far killed more than 30,878 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women, children, and adolescents.
