Perpetuating draft evasion through legislative tricks - comment

As IDF soldiers and reservists are dying in battle on a near-daily basis, and as tens of thousands of reservists are being called up for a third and even fourth round of duty – spending close to 250 days over the past few years fighting, first in the Gaza border communities, then in Gaza itself, and now in Lebanon – United Torah Judaism chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf acted wisely on Monday in stepping back from conditioning support for the 2025 budget on a bill that would formalize exemption from army service for tens of thousands of haredim.

At least Goldknopf had that much self-awareness.

Pushing legislation granting wholesale IDF exemptions at a time when so many are sacrificing so much is obscene. Certain things are just not done: Expecting others to put their lives on the line to protect your home and family while you yourself do not share in the burden is most assuredly one of them.

So, instead of linking a haredi exemption bill to the budget – saying there will not be one without the other and igniting a public firestorm – the haredi MKs, specifically Yisrael Eichler (UTJ), came up with another tactic that would serve the same purpose: passing legislation enabling the continuation of the payment of daycare subsidies for children of a working mother and a father who should be in the army but instead is studying in yeshiva.

The goal is the same: enshrining haredi military exemptions but doing it in a roundabout way.

How so?

Signals intent to get haredim into the army

On August 11, Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara’s office sent a letter, ordering Labor Minister Yoav Ben-Tzur (Shas) to cut childcare subsidies worth between NIS 1,000 to NIS 1,700 per child to yeshiva students who are ignoring call-up notices.

The letter stated that following a High Court of Justice ruling in June, mandating the drafting of yeshiva students due to the absence of a legislative framework from the Knesset, the state no longer has the authority to provide childcare subsidies for children up to age three of kollel students designated for military service but who have not responded to draft notices.

This move was nothing short of revolutionary because it signaled intent to use heavy economic tools at the state’s disposal to get haredi yeshiva and kollel students evading the draft into the army. Finally, the state would impose financial sanctions on the draft evaders themselves, not only on the yeshivot where they study.This is just one sanction in the state’s toolbox that it has the legal authority to use against draft evaders. Other tools include barring exit from the country and rescinding driver’s licenses.

Until August, none of those tools were employed in the faint hope that some agreement could be reached and a legal framework could be created whereby the vast majority of haredi youth would join the army, while a limited number of exemptions would be permitted for very gifted scholars.

In the meantime, it has become apparent that short of sanctions, haredim will not enlist. In early August, only 5% of some 1,000 haredim who were sent their first call-up notices –or some 50 people – showed up at induction centers. As a result of that failure, the IDF abandoned plans, at least temporarily, to send out another 2,000 draft notices.

Also, in the meantime, an extension of a few months was granted regarding the daycare subsidies, with that extension due to expire on November 1.

Thus, the urgency in the UTJ effort to pass a law enabling those subsidies to continue being paid for children of haredi fathers who should legally be in the army but are not.

In late June, the High Court issued a landmark ruling, saying there was no longer a legal basis for the continued military exemption for yeshiva students, and it ordered that the government stop funding yeshivot housing students who do not serve.

The ruling said educational institutions harboring students who do not serve in violation of the law should be penalized by losing state funding. The court, however, did not go the extra mile and say the financial sanctions should be extended to the individual yeshiva students themselves for not showing up for army service. That is the step the attorney-general took in ordering an end to the daycare subsidies.

According to various estimates, the state allocates NIS 160 million to NIS 200m. a year for childcare subsidies to haredi families where the husband, aged 18-26, does not go into the army.

In the immediate aftermath of the October 7 massacre, there was some hope that Hamas’s attack – and the painfully obvious need for more manpower in the IDF – would lead large numbers of haredim to voluntarily join the army. In the days that followed, some 3,000 haredi volunteers showed up for military duty, driven by a sense of shared fate and a desire to contribute during a time of national emergency.

The hope that this was the harbinger of a dynamic new phenomenon failed to materialize, however, as leading rabbis in the haredi community remained adamantly opposed to military service, and the move did not gain considerable traction.

This being the case, two catalysts could lead to a change in the situation. The first is if the rabbis feel pressure from the grassroots, namely, haredi youth, some of whom are obviously uncomfortable watching their peers risk their lives while they are exempt from sharing that burden.

Although this sentiment exists, it is not gaining momentum to the degree that will lead to a change anytime soon in the mindset of the rabbinical leaders, who are worried that if the gates to the army are opened, those who enter will drift away from the haredi lifestyle.

The second driving force that could trigger change is economic penalties, as has been proven in the past. Ironically, the man who showed how this can work is none other than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who today is afraid that if too much pressure is placed on the haredim, they will leave his coalition and the government will fall.

When Netanyahu was the finance minister from 2002-2005 in Ariel Sharon’s government, however, he implemented an austerity program that cut social-services spending and allowances to reduce the government deficit and stimulate private-sector growth. A key part of that plan was slashing child-allowance payments, a move that had a huge impact on haredi families since many of them were largely dependent on these allowances to make it through the month.

The loss of this income convinced many in the haredi community of the need to work. Haredi employment rates, which were 37% for men and 51% for women in 2003, rose to 55% for men and 81% for women by 2023. The child-allowance cuts did not lead to any overnight transformational change, but rather to a steady incremental change that spurred much greater haredi participation in the workforce.

The same thing could happen if financial penalties were used against those evading the draft. The haredi parties realize this, which is why on Monday, they initiated action to ensure that this particular tool, in the form of childcare subsidies, is not wielded.