How the Jerusalem Faction Turned the Ultra-Orthodox Draft Fight into a Wider Revolt

A long Hebrew feature examines the Jerusalem Faction, a hardline anti-draft stream inside ultra-Orthodox society, and argues that it has become the driving force behind increasingly violent protests over military conscription. The article centers on a conversation with Abraham Mankes, spokesman for the faction’s “Committee to Save the World of Torah,” who defends blocking roads, demonstrating outside officials’ homes, and refusing any compromise with the state.

Mankes says the state cannot be trusted, claiming that after years of broken promises it is impossible to sign any agreement with it. He argues that the core issue is not politics but Torah study and the right to remain fully ultra-Orthodox. In his view, the 7 October attacks did not change the conscription question, and he says that because his son was learning Torah that day, Hezbollah did not invade the north and Palestinians did not pour in from the territories. Another unnamed faction leader says the state forced the protests by freezing the draft law and turning tens of thousands of young men into criminals overnight.

The story traces the faction’s origins to the late 1990s split in the Ponvezh yeshiva in Bnei Brak, then to the broader break after Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv’s death in 2012. The more pragmatic camp followed Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman, while Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach led the harder line. That split produced today’s Jerusalem Faction, later led by Rabbi Asriel Auerbach, after the deaths of Shmuel Auerbach and Rabbi Asher Deutsch. The faction later split again, with Rabbi Tzvi Friedman’s more extreme “Reputation” group pulling even further left from the mainstream’s perspective.

The article lists recent flashpoints, including the attack on Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg’s home in Alon Moreh, attempts to break into the home of senior police officer Haim Shmueli in Pisgat Ze’ev, a breach of the Military Police commander’s yard in Ashkelon, incursions into police stations in Beit Shemesh and Kiryat Gat, an attempt to break into Military Prison 10, and riots in Bnei Brak and Ramat Gan. It says the faction has built an organized protest machine, with hotlines and volunteer dispatchers that warn thousands of subscribers when arrests are underway, and that more than 100,000 ultra-Orthodox are registered in such systems. Several commentators quoted in the piece say the faction’s clarity, discipline, and refusal to negotiate have made it more influential than the mainstream ultra-Orthodox leadership, which now appears politically weaker and increasingly echoes its rhetoric.