Haredi yeshiva heads urge Netanyahu to halt arrests for one year

Leaders 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, calling for an immediate one-year temporary order to stop arrests of yeshiva students and allow time to craft a long-term military service arrangement.

Unlike recent proposals that focused only on freezing arrests and were quickly rejected by coalition and opposition figures alike, the rabbis are asking for a broader plan. They want the arrests frozen for a year while significantly expanding service tracks adapted for the Haredi public and increasing enlistment into those frameworks, arguing that combining both elements would make the plan more legally viable.

In the letter, the yeshiva heads reject the claim that Haredi leadership alone is responsible for the crisis. They say efforts over more than a decade to regulate the status of yeshiva students failed because of multiple actors, including the legal system, political leadership, the IDF, and the security establishment, which, they say, did not create the trust and conditions needed for a broad solution. They warn that the current wave of arrests is undermining efforts to expand Haredi enlistment, because arrests damage the trust required for wider integration.

The rabbis propose a one-year pause in arrests alongside a national effort to broaden service options. Their plan includes tripling the number of students in Haredi hesder yeshivas within a year with a dedicated government budget, greatly expanding suitable service tracks in the IDF, police, rescue services, and local defense units, creating fast-track enlistment routes for adults who did not previously serve and adding them to reserve duty, and launching a broad public information campaign. They say the goal is to create practical conditions for religious young Haredi men to combine Torah study with security service without being forced to choose between them. They also want the temporary period used to finish a mutually agreed enlistment law, and they conclude with a plea for quick action, saying Israel needs unity, responsibility, protection of Torah study, and security, not another internal rift.