Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, protesters clashed with police in Modiin on Tuesday, successfully blocking military police from arresting a man who had avoided mandatory military service.
The dispute over military conscription for Haredi men goes back decades. Israel has long required military service for most Jewish citizens, but ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students received broad exemptions for years under arrangements intended to let them continue religious study. Those exemptions have become increasingly contested as Israel's military has faced personnel strains, and the issue has repeatedly tested coalition governments that rely on ultra-Orthodox political parties for support, while also facing pressure from courts and from other segments of Israeli society to apply service requirements more evenly.
According to Israeli military officials, Tuesday's confrontation ended with military police leaving the scene without the suspect after the crowd intervened. The Israel Defense Forces said the protesters acted in an organized manner and that their actions endangered soldiers at the scene. Public figures including Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Liberman condemned the incident. Separately, the Honenu legal aid organization said five people, including a 14-year-old, were arrested during a related evacuation at a site called Ora Yisrael.
The episode reflects an unresolved tension at the heart of Israeli society between religious communities seeking to preserve long-standing exemptions and a government under pressure to enforce conscription law more broadly. Both sides of the debate have deep public support, and the issue has proven difficult for successive governments to settle through legislation, resurfacing periodically whenever individual enforcement cases draw public attention.
Whether authorities attempt another arrest of the draft evader, and whether the incident adds pressure for a legislative resolution to the broader conscription dispute.
Why are ultra-Orthodox exemptions from military service controversial?
They have existed for decades to allow religious study, but many Israelis argue the exemptions place an uneven burden of service on the rest of the population.
Was the draft evader arrested?
No, military police left the scene without the suspect after the crowd intervened.