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A gathering crisis over drafting Haredi men into the military is jeopardizing the administration and dividing the nation.

Popular sentiment on the issue has changed profoundly in Israel following two years of war, and this is now perhaps the most volatile political risk facing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Legal Conflict

Legislators are reviewing a proposal to abolish the deferment given to yeshiva scholars engaged in full-time religious study, created when the State of Israel was established in 1948.

The deferment was ruled illegal by the nation's top court two decades ago. Stopgap solutions to extend it were formally ended by the bench last year, forcing the government to begin drafting the Haredi sector.

Roughly 24,000 call-up papers were issued last year, but only around 1,200 Haredi conscripts showed up, according to defense officials given to lawmakers.

Friction Boil Over Into Public View

Tensions are erupting onto the streets, with parliamentarians now deliberating a new draft bill to require ultra-Orthodox men into national service in the same way as other Israeli Jews.

Two representatives were confronted this month by radical elements, who are enraged with parliament's discussion of the draft legislation.

In a recent incident, a elite police squad had to rescue army police who were targeted by a big group of community members as they attempted to detain a man avoiding service.

These arrests have prompted the establishment of a new messaging system named "Emergency Alert" to send out instant alerts through Haredi neighborhoods and mobilize activists to stop detentions from occurring.

"This is a Jewish state," said Shmuel Orbach. "You can't fight against the Jewish faith in a Jewish country. That is untenable."

An Environment Apart

Yet the shifts affecting Israel have failed to penetrate the walls of the religious seminary in an ultra-Orthodox city, an Haredi enclave on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

In the learning space, teenage boys study together to debate Judaism's religious laws, their brightly coloured notepads contrasting with the rows of formal attire and small black kippahs.

"Arrive late at night, and you will see half the guys are pursuing religious study," the leader of the academy, a senior rabbi, explained. "Through religious study, we safeguard the soldiers wherever they are. This is our army."

The community holds that continuous prayer and religious study protect Israel's soldiers, and are as vital to its defense as its conventional forces. This conviction was acknowledged by previous governments in the previous eras, the rabbi said, but he conceded that the nation is evolving.

Rising Popular Demand

The Haredi community has significantly increased its share of Israel's population over the since the state's founding, and now represents 14%. What began as an deferment for a small number of yeshiva attendees turned into, by the start of the 2023 war, a cohort of approximately 60,000 men exempt from the national service.

Opinion polls show approval of drafting the Haredim is growing. Research in July found that an overwhelming percentage of the broader Jewish public - even a significant majority in his own coalition allies - backed consequences for those who declined a enlistment summons, with a clear majority in approving removing privileges, passports, or the right to vote.

"I feel there are citizens who live in this country without serving," one serviceman in Tel Aviv commented.

"I don't think, no matter how devout, [it] should be an justification not to go and serve your country," said a Tel Aviv resident. "If you're born here, I find it somewhat unreasonable that you want to avoid service just to study Torah all day."

Perspectives from Inside Bnei Brak

Support for ending the exemption is also expressed by traditional Jews not part of the ultra-Orthodox sector, like a Bnei Brak inhabitant, who lives near the yeshiva and highlights non-Haredi religious Jews who do serve in the military while also engaging in religious study.

"It makes me angry that the Haredim don't enlist," she said. "It's unfair. I am also committed to the Torah, but there's a saying in Hebrew - 'Safra and Saifa' – it signifies the Torah and the guns together. That is the path, until the days of peace."

Ms Barak maintains a small memorial in the neighborhood to fallen servicemen, both observant and non-observant, who were fallen in war. Long columns of images {