In the middle of Israel’s draft crisis, leaders of Haredi hesder yeshivas issued an urgent public appeal, titled “The Cry of the Hour,” asking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth to stop arrests of yeshiva students immediately for one year.
In a formal letter sent on Wednesday, the rabbis warned that their life’s work is in danger of collapse. They said the wave of arrests targeting yeshiva students and Torah scholars is deeply shaking the Haredi public, widening the gap with the state rather than closing it, and creating feelings of persecution, pain, and radicalization.
The signatories said they have spent more than a decade building frameworks that let Haredi young men combine Torah study with military burden-sharing, but now that effort is unraveling before their eyes. To prevent further escalation, they are demanding immediate legislation for a temporary order that would freeze all arrests of yeshiva students for one year.
They argued that such a pause would create the calm needed to develop and expand practical solutions. During that year, they want to triple the number of students in Haredi hesder yeshivas, backed by appropriate state funding, launch a broad public information campaign in the Haredi sector, expand service tracks for police, rescue services, and regional defense units, and advance fast-track enlistment solutions for older men who did not serve in the past. Among those who signed were Rabbi David Leibel, Rabbi Carmi Gross, Rabbi Avraham Brodiansky, and Rabbi Yonatan Reis, along with additional yeshiva heads from across the country.
