Ultra-Orthodox Hesder Yeshiva Heads Urge Netanyahu to Freeze Draft Arrests for a Year

Leaders of ultra-Orthodox hesder yeshivas, which combine Torah study with military service, sent an urgent letter on Wednesday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth. In the letter, titled "The Cry of the Hour," they warn that mounting pressure on the ultra-Orthodox public is undermining the model they have spent decades building and could cause it to collapse.

The rabbis said that, for more than a decade, they have worked to create frameworks that allow ultra-Orthodox men to combine religious study with service in Israel’s defense. They wrote that the project, built carefully and on trust, is now "being shaken before our eyes." According to them, the current wave of arrests and the legal and public campaign surrounding draft evasion are not advancing enlistment, but producing the opposite effect, creating "a sense of persecution, pain and radicalization."

Their main demand is immediate legislation of a temporary order that would suspend arrests of yeshiva students and draft evaders for one year. They said such a pause would provide the calm needed to develop lasting solutions and expand the number of people serving. The proposed plan during that year includes tripling the number of students serving in ultra-Orthodox hesder tracks, launching a broad public information campaign to encourage service, creating new service tracks suited to ultra-Orthodox lifestyles in security, rescue and emergency roles, and finding solutions for ultra-Orthodox young men who did not remain in Torah-study frameworks.

The letter ends with a plea for unity during wartime. "The people of Israel need unity, the preservation of Torah study and the preservation of Israel’s security, not another split within the camp," the signatories wrote. Among those who signed are Rabbi David Leibel, president of Mishmeret HaTorah yeshivas, Rabbi Carmi Gross of Derech Chaim, Rabbi Avraham Brodiansky of Hisspin, and Rabbi Yonatan Reis of Hadvata.