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A looming political storm over enlisting Haredi men into the military is posing a risk to Israel's government and splitting the state.

The public mood on the question has changed profoundly in Israel after two years of hostilities, and this is now perhaps the most volatile political risk facing Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Constitutional Battle

Lawmakers are reviewing a proposal to terminate the special status granted to yeshiva scholars enrolled in Torah study, created when the State of Israel was declared in 1948.

This arrangement was struck down by the Supreme Court in the early 2000s. Interim measures to maintain it were officially terminated by the bench last year, forcing the administration to start enlisting the community.

Some 24,000 enlistment orders were issued last year, but just approximately 1,200 men from the community enlisted, according to military testimony presented to lawmakers.

Tensions Spill Onto the Streets

Friction is spilling onto the city centers, with lawmakers now discussing a new legislative proposal to compel Haredi males into military service in the same way as other Israeli Jews.

Two representatives were confronted this month by hardline activists, who are furious with the Knesset's deliberations of the draft legislation.

In a recent incident, a specialized force had to extract enforcement personnel who were targeted by a big group of community members as they sought to apprehend a alleged conscription dodger.

These arrests have prompted the establishment of a new communication network named "Black Alert" to send out instant alerts through ultra-Orthodox communities and summon demonstrators to stop detentions from taking place.

"Israel is a Jewish nation," said Shmuel Orbach. "It's impossible to battle the Jewish faith in a nation founded on Jewish identity. It is a contradiction."

A Realm Separate

Yet the transformations sweeping across Israel have failed to penetrate the confines of the Torah academy in an ultra-Orthodox city, an religious community on the edge of Tel Aviv.

In the learning space, teenage boys sit in pairs to discuss the Torah, their brightly coloured notepads contrasting with the seats of white shirts and traditional skullcaps.

"Visit in the early hours, and you will see half the guys are studying Torah," the dean of the seminary, the spiritual guide, said. "By studying Torah, we safeguard the troops on the front lines. This is our army."

Haredi Jews maintain that unceasing devotion and Torah learning protect Israel's soldiers, and are as crucial to its defense as its conventional forces. This conviction was accepted by the nation's leaders in the previous eras, Rabbi Mazuz said, but he conceded that Israel was changing.

Growing Societal Anger

The ultra-Orthodox population has more than doubled its share of the country's people over the last seventy years, and now accounts for a sizable minority. A policy that originated as an deferment for several hundred yeshiva attendees became, by the start of the 2023 war, a group of approximately 60,000 men left out of the draft.

Surveys indicate backing for ending the exemption is growing. A poll in July showed that a large majority of the broader Jewish public - including almost three-quarters in his own coalition allies - backed consequences for those who ignored a enlistment summons, with a solid consensus in approving cutting state subsidies, the right to travel, or the franchise.

"It seems to me there are citizens who are part of this country without giving anything back," one military member in Tel Aviv said.

"In my view, regardless of piety, [it] should be an justification not to perform service your country," stated a young woman. "As a citizen by birth, I find it somewhat unreasonable that you want to avoid service just to learn in a yeshiva all day."

Views from Within the Community

Advocacy of broadening conscription is also found among traditional Jews outside the Haredi community, like one local resident, who lives near the seminary and highlights observant but non-Haredi Jews who do enlist in the army while also studying Torah.

"It makes me angry that ultra-Orthodox people don't enlist," she said. "It's unfair. I am also committed to the Torah, but there's a teaching in Hebrew - 'The Book and the Sword' – it signifies the Torah and the guns together. That's the way forward, until the days of peace."

The resident runs a local tribute in the neighborhood to local soldiers, both religious and secular, who were lost in conflict. Lines of images {