Haredi yeshiva heads urge Netanyahu to freeze draft arrests for a year

Heads of Haredi hesder yeshivas sent an unusual letter on Wednesday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chair Boaz Bismuth. They called for an immediate one-year temporary order to halt arrests of yeshiva students, while working toward a long-term solution to the ultra-Orthodox draft issue.

Unlike recent proposals that focused only on stopping arrests, the rabbis offered a broader plan. They said the freeze should be paired with a major expansion of service tracks tailored to the ultra-Orthodox public and a sharp increase in the number of recruits to those frameworks, arguing that the combination could make the arrangement more legally viable.

In the letter, they rejected the claim that the Haredi leadership alone is responsible for the crisis. They said that for more than a decade, efforts to regulate the status of yeshiva students have failed because of a range of actors, including the court system, the political echelon, the IDF and the defense establishment, which they said did not create the trust or conditions needed for a broad settlement. They warned that the current wave of arrests is harming efforts to expand Haredi enlistment because arrests undermine trust.

The proposed plan would freeze arrests for one year and launch a national effort to expand service options. The yeshiva heads want the number of students in Haredi hesder yeshivas tripled within a year, with a dedicated state budget to do so. They also called for expanded Haredi service tracks in the IDF, police, rescue services and local emergency defense units, faster enlistment channels for adults who never served, integration into reserve duty, and a broad public campaign to encourage service. They said the goal is to let Haredi youth combine Torah study and military duty, while using the temporary period to pass a mutually agreed draft law. They ended by urging the government to act quickly, saying Israel needs unity, responsibility, protection of Torah study and security, not further division.