Column warns against escalating ultra-Orthodox draft fight

Emmanuel Ben-Sebo is urging Israel’s president, prime minister, chief justice, chief rabbis and army chief to stop the growing polarization over military service and Torah study before it leads to another dangerous internal confrontation. He says the country has already lived through waves of anger that began as a supposedly legitimate protest against judicial reform and ended in the October 7 Hamas massacre, and that the lesson now should be to pull back from the brink.

In his view, a Jewish democratic state does not need a law compelling Torah study, nor coercive laws or sanctions, and it should not need to argue about whether people will accept the duty to serve. He warns that with elections approaching, the draft debate has again become a political weapon, with “yes” and “no” camps drowning out the truth and damaging the shared basis of Israeli society.

Ben-Sebo says the war and the trauma of October 7 should have led leading rabbis to pause and to tell yeshiva students that, once the army is properly prepared to absorb thousands of those who are not full-time Torah scholars, enlistment should begin as a matter of right, not force. He notes that most rabbis did not push students to enlist, while the formation of the Hashmonaim Brigade has only produced a tiny number of fighters who combine military service with Torah learning.

He also criticizes what he sees as an obsessive enforcement mentality in law and justice, saying it brings punishments, sanctions, loss of rights and a “hunting” atmosphere rather than dialogue. Instead of bridges, he says, the extremists on both sides have built rafts of hatred, and the streets are once again filled with violence and sorrow. His conclusion is a plea for “adult” leadership and for those who unite, not those who inflame.