JERUSALEM – Israel’s Supreme Court on April 26 ordered the state to cut financial benefits to ultra-Orthodox Jews who refuse to answer conscription call-ups.
“Since no concrete steps have been proposed indicating an intention to enforce the obligation to enlist… there is no alternative but to order practical measures,” the court said in its ruling.
There is a long-standing exemption from compulsory national service for ultra-Orthodox men who engage in full-time religious study, which dates back to Israel’s founding in 1948.
However, the Supreme Court has repeatedly challenged the exemption this century culminating in a 2024 ruling that the government must conscript ultra-Orthodox men.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, relies on the support of ultra-Orthodox parties to sustain his government and so has fought efforts to end the exemption.
With the latest ruling on April 26, the court is effectively ordering the removal of subsidies granted to the ultra-Orthodox that give them reduced rates for local taxes, public transport and childcare.
Judge Noam Solberg said the ruling did not amount to “sanctions” but a “loss of benefits”.
Military service was a “legitimate” objective and should be taken into account when determining “the eligibility conditions for a given benefit”, he wrote.
The ultra-Orthodox community, known as the Haredim in Hebrew, was once a small fraction of Israel’s population, but population growth means it now accounts for 14 per cent of all Jewish Israelis.
That growth has combined with long call-ups for thousands of Israelis fighting in the country’s recent wars to generate resentment of the Haredi exemptions, including among religious Jews.
The government had been due to debate a Bill on conscripting them, but Mr Netanyahu has fought to delay it.
Instead he has leaned towards an alternative Bill that would largely allow Haredim to continue avoiding military service, dubbed by critics the “draft dodging Bill”.
There are around 1.3 million ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel, and roughly 66,000 men of military age currently benefit from the exemption – a record number, media reports say.
Military figures show only two per cent of ultra-Orthodox Jews respond to conscription orders.
Students in yeshivas, or Jewish seminaries, who previously benefited from exemption, are now automatically called up. But most refuse to report for duty without facing any sanctions. AFP
