{"id":36277,"date":"2026-07-16T21:10:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T15:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/israels-parliament-approves-laws-to-enshrine-exemption-of-ultra-orthodox-men-from-military-service\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T21:10:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T15:40:29","slug":"israels-parliament-approves-laws-to-enshrine-exemption-of-ultra-orthodox-men-from-military-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/israels-parliament-approves-laws-to-enshrine-exemption-of-ultra-orthodox-men-from-military-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s parliament approves laws to enshrine exemption of ultra-Orthodox men from military service"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p><iframe title=\"Everlit Audio Player\" src=\"https:\/\/everlit.audio\/embeds\/artl_ayv5UyynDjP?ui_title_intro=Listen+now%3A&amp;client=wp&amp;client_version=3.2.3\" width=\"100%\" height=\"136px\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) \u2014 Israel\u2019s parliament has approved laws that effectively<span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"LinkEnhancement\"><a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/israel-jerusalem-netanyahu-ultraorthodox-military-14cd1975c831d22f35720a10ddc1cf28\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\">halt the enlistment of ultra-Orthodox men<\/a><\/span><span>\u00a0<\/span>in the country\u2019s military in a last-ditch effort by Prime Minister Benjamin<span>\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"LinkEnhancement\"><a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/israel-netanyahu-knesset-politics-elections-6f9aa6db190ea8bd167d723aa86d2659\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\">Netanyahu\u2019s ruling coalition<\/a><\/span><span>\u00a0<\/span>to woo religious political parties ahead of elections in the fall.<\/p>\n<p>Lawmakers voted in a marathon session on Monday and Tuesday to both freeze the arrests of ultra-Orthodox draft evaders and to enshrine Jewish religious studies as a \u201cfoundational value\u201d of the state.<\/p>\n<p>Both laws represent significant concessions by Netanyahu\u2019s Likud party to ultra-Orthodox politicians seeking to formalize their community\u2019s de facto exemption from serving in the military, which is compulsory for most Jewish men and women in Israel.<\/p>\n<p>The military is already grappling with troop shortages and many Israelis have grown tired of the longstanding system that allowed ultra-Orthodox men to avoid service. Each year, roughly 13,000 ultra-Orthodox men reach the conscription age of 18, but less than 10% enlist, according to a parliamentary committee.<\/p>\n<p>The laws come in the wake of nearly three years of wars \u2014 from Gaza to Lebanon and Iran \u2014 and ahead of the Knesset\u2019s break for the summer recess. It will return just days before the next parliament elections on Oct. 27, a vote that will also be a referendum on Netanyahu\u2019s wartime leadership.<\/p>\n<p><span>The prime minister, who has served more terms than any other premier in Israel\u2019s history, is courting the support of the ultra-Orthodox, also known as Haredim, in the upcoming polls.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cNetanyahu is trying to ensure that Haredim are going to negotiate only with him after the next elections,\u201d said Shlomit Ravitsky Tur-Paz, head of the religious and state program at the Israel Democracy Institute think tank.<\/p>\n<p>But Netanyahu faces stiff opposition, including from within his own party and even the military chief of staff, Ravitsky Tur-Paz said.<\/p>\n<p>In a letter to Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, military chief Eyal Zamir criticized the bills, describing them as \u201cclearly and unequivocally inconsistent\u201d with the military\u2019s needs, according to local media reports.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is inconceivable that the military system under my command, which demands unprecedented sacrifice from its personnel, would be party to granting mass exemptions from prosecution,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>The exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox date back to the 1948 founding of Israel, when a small number of students sought to revive the Jewish scholarship system after it was decimated during the Holocaust.<\/p>\n<p>Israel\u2019s Supreme Court later ruled that the exemptions are illegal. Experts say the law formalizing the study of the Torah, Judaism\u2019s foundational text, grants the state a legal basis from which to oppose the court\u2019s opinions.<\/p>\n<p>The law is \u201can utter desecration of God\u2019s name\u201d that is \u201cspitting in the face\u201d of Israeli soldiers, said opposition leader Yair Lapid.<\/p>\n<p>For Moshe Gafni, an ultra-Orthodox lawmaker who sponsored the bill, its passage is historic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor thousands of years, Torah study was the force that preserved the Jewish people throughout their diaspora and all generations,\u201d he said, adding that the law \u201cwill be a compass for the values of the state.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>Melzer reported from Nahariya, Israel.<\/p>\n<p><!-- CONTENT END 1 -->\n        <\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/religionnews.com\/2026\/07\/16\/israels-parliament-approves-laws-to-enshrine-exemption-of-ultra-orthodox-men-from-military-service\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) \u2014 Israel\u2019s parliament has approved laws that effectively\u00a0halt the enlistment of ultra-Orthodox men\u00a0in the country\u2019s military in a last-ditch effort by Prime Minister Benjamin\u00a0Netanyahu\u2019s ruling coalition\u00a0to woo religious political parties ahead of elections in the fall. Lawmakers voted in a marathon session on Monday and Tuesday to both freeze the arrests [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/banitoday.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}