High court to hear petitions demanding immediate implementation of ultra-Orthodox military draft

The High Court of Justice in Israel convened a nine-justice panel on Sunday to hear petitions advocating for the immediate conscription of eligible ultra-Orthodox Jewish men into military service.

The hearing, which is expected to last for several hours and is being broadcast live on Israeli networks, comes in the absence of a law regulating the exemption of ultra-Orthodox men from the draft. 

In March, the High Court ordered the government to stop paying stipends to ultra-Orthodox yeshiva schools for students who had been exempted from being drafted into the Israel Defense Forces before the law expired. 

Ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students were given an exemption by the government as long as they studied a certain number of hours in a yeshiva, a school for the study of rabbinic Jewish law as outlined in the Mishnah, Talmud, and later rabbinic literature. 

However, the law allowing the exemption was provisional and had to be renewed. After the failure of the coalition government to pass certain judicial reforms last year, viewed as necessary to obtain a draft law more favorable to the ultra-Orthodox parties, the temporary law expired at the end of March 2024. The government was then instructed by Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to begin drafting eligible yeshiva students. 

So far, the government has not begun to draft eligible yeshiva students nor halted payments to yeshiva schools whose eligible students do not submit to the draft. It passed a special resolution stating that the ultra-Orthodox will not be drafted despite the legal requirement to do so. Following that resolution, several groups filed petitions with the High Court to force the government to uphold the law. 

The government has been trying to negotiate a new draft law that would have broad support in the coalition and become one of the first bills to be passed since the Knesset resumed its summer session. 

The government submitted a response to the petitions in May, claiming it intends to advance legislation –submitted by Benny Gantz in the previous government – to continue its compliance with the Continuity Law. The government plans to do this before July 31, when the Knesset takes its next recess. 

On Sunday, a consolidated hearing is being held on five petitions, three of which demand the state be instructed to recruit members of the ultra-Orthodox sector and two petitions that demanded government funds given to yeshiva be halted for students whose deferral of service had expired. 

Because of the unwillingness of the ultra-Orthodox to participate in the draft, and their large representation in the coalition government, a High Court ruling ordering the government to begin drafting eligible ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students could reportedly lead to the collapse of the government. 

Most Israelis outside of the ultra-Orthodox community resent the special exemptions that the yeshiva students receive since many of those students also receive government stipends for studying. 

On Sunday, opposition Knesset Member Avigdor Liberman, head of the Yisrael Beytenu party, posted to 𝕏: "Today there will be a hearing in the High Court of Justice on the non-recruitment law of part of the population in the State of Israel. Instead of enacting a compulsory draft law for everyone, the Israeli government is promoting a non-conscription law and at the same time intends to impose an additional burden on reservists and increase their annual service to 90 days."

At the time of publication, the hearing was still in progress. This is a developing story.