‘To jail and not the army’: Ultra-orthodox block highway as draft exemption expires

Hundreds of ultra-orthodox men blocked a highway in central Israel as decades of exemption from the IDF for religious youth came to an end on Monday. 

In February, the Supreme Court ordered the government to explain why ultra-orthodox still aren’t drafted to the army. The deadline expired on Wednesday last week, effectively meaning that all ultra-orthodox will now be drafted in the same way as other Jewish Israelis.

The Supreme Court also froze financial support for Yeshivas failing to send their students to the IDF. The protesters blocked highway 4 outside the ultra-orthodox city of Bnei Brak, holding banners that read: “To jail and not the army.”

Ultra-orthodox lawmakers slammed the Supreme Court’s decision last week, with Shas party chair Arye Dery calling it a “mark of Cain and unprecedented bullying of Torah students in the Jewish state.”

“Of all the days, the people of Israel need God’s mercy in the south and the north, the Supreme Court is leading an offensive approach toward Torah students, whom the world stands upon,” he added.

Opposition lawmakers however welcomed the decision. Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid called on the government “not to cheat, not to deceive, not to find bypass routes, not to transfer hidden budgets, not to do all the things we know they will try to do. For a change, they will be forced to act as if they are a law-abiding government in a law-abiding country.”

The “status-quo” agreement in Israel has exempted ultra-orthodox boys and girls from the army for decades, whereas secular and less religious Israeli Jewish girls and boys have to serve roughly two and three years in the IDF respectively.

In 2017, after years of debate over the arrangement, the Supreme Court finally ruled that the exemption of strictly-Orthodox from the army was   unconstitutional.