Sharing the burden: How the ultra-Orthodox can serve in the IDF

“All of Israel are responsible for one another.” This key principle of Judaism dates back to the Talmud. Rabbi Moshe Zvi Neria put it very well: “It is not just a beautiful proverb. Check the sources – you will find this is a key principle of Halacha [Jewish law] …The whole internal logic of the Torah and the individual and collective mitzvot [commandments] are embedded in it.”

I believe this is a cornerstone of the raison d’etre of the State of Israel.

Nonetheless, Israel faces a critical juncture. As it is being attacked on all its borders, it urgently needs to enlist every young able-bodied man and woman to defend the nation, but it faces stonewall refusal by the ultra-Orthodox, who claim to embody and practice authentic Judaism. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has initiated a cynical maneuver that is aimed, like most of his moves, at staying in power rather than serving the nation’s needs. His government told the Supreme Court it intended to propose a law submitted by Benny Gantz in the previous Knesset, during the term of the Bennett-Lapid government. It would continue to exempt ultra-Orthodox men from military conscription. Netanyahu said the government pledged to complete the legislation by the end of the Knesset’s summer session on July 31.

Israel’s Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara stated that the draft law “is not adapted to the present security situation” and that “the defense establishment and the IDF were not involved in the decision.” 

Since October 7, Israel and the world have changed. The IDF needs to greatly expand its military forces. By 2030, the proportion of ultra-Orthodox aged 20 and younger will comprise 25% – one in every four. If we are each responsible for each other’s well-being, then they must not shirk their duty to defend the country that supports them. However, their leading rabbis insist on blanket exemption. 

How can Israel resolve this issue?

I spoke with my Neaman Institute colleague Dr. Reuven Gal, who has many years of experience working with the haredi community to integrate them into society, economy, and military service. He has a viable plan. 

Dr. Gal, you served as chief psychologist of the IDF, with the rank of colonel. Although you are secular, you have a very strong and long-standing background in working with the ultra-Orthodox, including very good connections with many ultra-Orthodox rabbis. How did this come about?

True, I am a secular Israeli. But being a Jew is an integral part of my identity, starting with my family background. I am a sixth-generation Sabra [native Israeli]. My great-great-grandfather was Rabbi Israel of Shklov, a beloved student of the Vilna Gaon [(1720–97), the foremost leader of non-Hassidic Jewry]. I assume I’m carrying some of his genes.

Family genealogy notwithstanding, my main exposure to the ultra-Orthodox sector came when I served (2002-2004) as deputy to national security adviser gen. Uzi Dayan, under prime minister Ariel Sharon. Being in charge, among other things, of problematic domestic issues, I started to look for a solution to the growing problem of haredi young men not serving in the IDF, despite the Israeli law of mandatory military service. [Since the founding of the state in 1948, fixed-term military service in Israel has been compulsory for all Jews.]

Two years later, I was asked by prime minister Ehud Olmert to establish a new framework of National Civic Service (Sherut Ezrahi-Leumi), which, for the first time in Israel’s history, started to recruit young ultra-Orthodox men. 

Against all odds, we were successful in recruiting (on a voluntary basis!) several thousand haredim. Part of this success was the result of the many hours I spent with various rabbis and admorim [spiritual leaders of Hassidic groups]. It was during that period that I became closely connected with the ultra-Orthodox community. Not only do I know and respect many of their most revered leaders, but many of them know and respect me as well. 

United Torah Judaism has seven MKs in the Netanyahu cabinet and holds the balance of power among the 64 MKs who form the coalition government. They demand full exemption from army service for haredim at a time when the Gaza war and the attacks by Iranian proxies have greatly increased the IDF’s manpower needs. We need those young men to serve in the IDF – and besides, it is only right that they do so. Netanyahu pulled another rabbit out of his hat and is proposing a draft law suggested by the Bennett-Lapid government, put forward long before the Gaza war and irrelevant at present.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant opposes it, as does Benny Gantz after leaving the government. In Yiddish, this is called a plonter – a very hard to untangle knot. In your opinion, are there more moderate elements and leaders among the ultra-Orthodox whose voices are not being heard? Is this a case of those who shout the loudest drive the bus?A plonter, indeed. However, there is a crack, the beginning of a crack, in the ultra-Orthodox community, and that’s how the light gets in – if I may cite Leonard Cohen’s lyric.

There is a process of change that haredi society has undergone in recent decades. As early as 2012, Lee Kahner and Chaim Zicherman’s pioneering research pointed to the emergence of new sectors within haredi society – called New ultra-Orthodox, Israeli ultra-Orthodox, or ‘Haredim with modern touches’ – that still belong to the haredi core but are also characterized by a lifestyle that combines practices that are not necessarily accepted in the ‘hardcore’ haredi community, such as Internet use, higher education, and employment outside the community. 

Recent estimates indicate that these groups constitute about 40% of the haredi public. As far as recruitment to the IDF is concerned, the position among haredim in these groups is much more moderate than in conservative haredi circles and by the leadership – both political and spiritual – of the haredi public.

Furthermore, recently there were some unprecedented statements made by important, revered rabbis. For example, Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch, one of the two heads of the Lithuanian community, stated that a haredi who is not a ‘true’ yeshiva student should enlist in the IDF. Similar, even more emphatic, remarks were voiced and disseminated by Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Gottlieb. 

Such statements have not been heard for many years from any haredi leader. Recall that past leaders in haredi society, such as Lithuanian Rabbi Shach and Sephardi Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, were not afraid to express such views. Still, in contrast with these tolerant statements, conservative voices within ultra-Orthodox society are heard again and again, sometimes even more powerfully, who categorically reject the very idea of enlisting in the IDF or any state framework. 

More than two decades ago, the Knesset passed the Tal Law, which seemed to be a reasonable approach to drafting the ultra-Orthodox. But the Supreme Court declared it invalid because it discriminated against non-Orthodox. At the time, you were among the few who lamented this Supreme Court decision, made by seven justices against three opposed. Why were you opposed, and why do you believe this Supreme Court decision was misguided?

Indeed, I was one of the few who called on the High Court of Justice not to shelve the Tal Law, even before this happened, in February 2012. I have since reiterated this opinion, many times, that the repeal of the law was a shame for generations to come. 

Why? Because there are facts and figures to prove that the Tal Law was the right – the only! – way. During the five years between 2007 and 2012 that the Tal Law was in operation, close to 10,000 ultra-Orthodox men enlisted in the IDF and National Service! They did so voluntarily, on the basis of the Tal Law that allowed them to embark on a year of decision and then decide for themselves whether they wanted to return to the yeshiva permanently or to join the world of labor and employment. 

It didn’t end there. Those haredim who had completed their military service were absorbed into the labor market, and their employment rate stood at about 90% – higher than the average workforce employment rate of all men in Israel, and certainly higher than the employment rate among haredi men in general. Would you not call this a success story?

But the Supreme Court thought that these numbers, impressive as they were compared to the earlier stage, did not provide a reasonable enough answer to the injustice of not fully sharing the equal burden of military service. 

Yet I maintain: The Tal Law may have not been the most just solution, but it was the wisest one.

In your Neaman Institute position paper, you proposed a reasonable compromise for drafting the utra-Orthodox – one that you believe is acceptable at least to the more moderate wing of this group. What is your proposal, and do you think it can be implemented? Is anybody listening?

My proposal stands basically on two main legs. One – ‘not all.’ Second – budgeting (institutional) and remuneration (personal) instead of sanctions and punishments.

‘Not all’ means that the new recruitment law will impose a recruitment obligation on ultra-Orthodox young men but will allow each yeshiva and kollel [an institute for full-time advanced study of the Talmud] to determine the number and identity of the IDF recruits in each recruitment cycle. 

Even within haredi society today, there are voices supporting recruitment into the IDF of those who ‘hitch a ride’ in yeshivas and are not seriously studying. A rough estimate is that they are between 15% to 25%, depending on the level of the various yeshivas. 

Accordingly, the proposed draft law will require every head of yeshiva to determine this group at his yeshiva, reach an agreement with the individuals (and, if necessary, their parents), and bring them to the gates of the army recruitment center. 

Therefore, this is not about quotas or even coercion but rather about an agreed decision with the backing of the yeshiva’s rabbi, who is an authoritative and respected figure. The fact that the requirement does not include all yeshiva students and even keeps within it, for continued studies (and continued exemption), the specially gifted and the ‘serious’ students minimizes the objections. The expectation is that gradually the percentage of recruits will rise and within a few years will stabilize at an optimal rate that will satisfy all sides.

Budgeting model (institutional): In parallel with this process of selective recruiting, the reward process will be activated.

Yeshivas and kollels will be proportionally rewarded according to the number of recruits among them. In principle, however, there will be no use of sanctions, only rewards. The method of remuneration will be similar, in its general nature, to the budgeting model of the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education.

Remuneration model (personal): In addition to institutional compensation, an individual incentive system will also be implemented at the individual level through a progressive voucher program. At the end of army service, a personal voucher (similar to a discharged soldier’s cash grant) will be provided, adapted to the ultra-Orthodox. Any haredi who has reached the age of 22 (or the age of termination of the exemption, as determined) and has not enlisted will be notified of receipt of such a personal voucher, which will take effect only after completing his service. 

A delay in starting military service will reduce the value of the voucher, relative to the duration of the delay. For example, if you postpone by a year, you will still receive 80%; if two years, 70%; and so on. 

In addition to all of the above, all haredim enlisted in the IDF will be entitled to IDF service grants, according to their socio-economic and family situation, in addition to the monthly salary paid to each soldier in compulsory service. The combination of all these payments amounts to several thousand shekels a month – higher than what a yeshiva student receives at present.

There is one word of caution. The prolonged and painful problem of inequality in bearing the burden due to the non-recruitment of haredim may be easily and quickly replaced by an even more painful problem due to their recruitment in large numbers into the IDF. The IDF bears the heavy responsibility not to correct past distortions by creating new ones.

The IDF must carefully and intelligently build the mechanisms for absorbing, integrating, and activating haredi recruits into its ranks.

AN EDITORIAL in The Jerusalem Post on February 11 summed up the dilemma succinctly: “October 7 proved that Israel simply does not have the luxury anymore to exempt such a large part of the population from military duty. Continuing to do so endangers everyone’s security. 

“The initiative should come from the haredi public itself. What is needed now is for courageous rabbis from within haredi society to stand up against the prevailing current in their communities and say that given Israel’s security needs, it is imperative – absolutely imperative – that haredi men join everyone else in literally defending the borders.”

All Israelis are indeed each responsible for the well-being of all others. And this implies, for those not seriously studying Talmud, doing military service. 

Dr. Gal has shown us how this can be done. There is a way out of this plonter. All we need is people of vision and goodwill to implement it. 

On June 2, Israel’s Supreme Court began a hearing on the contentious issue of the long-standing exemption of ultra-Orthodox men from IDF service. The Jerusalem Post reported that “the hearing could lead the court to give a final order to the state to begin drafting haredi men, which could have dramatic social and political ramifications. The hearing centered on two issues: First, whether or not the government could continue to avoid recruiting haredi men into the IDF.

And second, whether or not the government could continue providing funding for haredi yeshivot for students of military age who no longer had a legal exemption from IDF service.”■

The writer heads the Zvi Griliches Research Data Center at S. Neaman Institute, Technion. He blogs at www.timnovate.wordpress.com.