JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Israeli military is set to issue call-up notices to 1,000 members of the ultra-Orthodox community on Sunday as a divisive battle over drafting the religious Haredim into the army moves into a new phase.
The move follows a Supreme Court ruling last month that ordered the defence ministry to end the longstanding exemption from military service for Jewish seminary students under arrangements made soon after the birth of the state of Israel when their numbers were tiny.
The move has been bitterly opposed by the two religious parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, placing severe strains on the right-wing coalition formed after elections in 2022.
Leaders of the rapidly growing ultra-Orthodox community say that forcing seminary students to serve alongside secular Israelis including women risks destroying their identity as religious Jews. Some rabbis have urged anyone in their community who receives call-up orders to burn them.
Following the first set of call-ups, further notices for an initial total of 3,000 ultra-Orthodox conscripts are expected to be sent out in coming weeks.
The government is still trying to pass a conscription law that would potentially create some limited compromise and resolve the issue before it threatens the stability of the coalition.
However with Israeli troops still fighting in Gaza, more than nine months after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, and a growing threat of war in Lebanon, pressure from the army and secular Israelis to spread the burden of serving in the military has grown sharply.
Israelis are bound by law to serve in the military from the age of 18 for 24-32 months. Members of Israel’s 21-percent Arab minority are mostly exempt, though some do serve.
Not all of the Haredim refuse to serve and the Israeli Defence Forces have created a number of units specially for the ultra-Orthodox. But resistance to the draft has caused weeks of protests by demonstrators chanting “death before conscription” and other slogans.
(Reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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