If Only It Were A Lie

Israel really, really does need charedim to draft.

Well, this is an unfortunate mistake. Liel Liebowitz wrote an article in Tablet Magazine called “Israel’s Two Big Lies.” One of the lies he alleges is with regard to how effectively Israel is fighting the war, which I’m not going to discuss. The other lie that he alleges is that Israel needs charedim to serve in the army. He claims that this is just a left-wing political stunt to bring down the government, and that no such need exists:

“Since Oct. 7, the Knesset revealed, 4,000 young Haredi men showed up of their own volition and asked to volunteer to fight… Here’s what happened next: Almost immediately, the IDF deemed 3,120 of these men unfitting to serve… The army doesn’t need Haredi recruits to meet its goals.”

Helpfully, Liebowitz provides a link to the Knesset report. I don’t know if he reads Ivrit, but it seems that he’s relying on someone else’s presentation of it. Because what it shows if you actually read it is that these 4000 “young men” were actually all over the age of 26 and were married with several children. And they weren’t “volunteering to fight” in Gaza; they were only applying for Shlav Bet - a few weeks of basic training followed by very limited service. So it’s hardly surprising that many of them were in their 30s and 40s and were unfit to serve, and that the the army did not have much use for them.

The army most certainly needs more manpower. This is for numerous reasons: to replace all those killed or injured, and to meet the increased requirements that are now realized to be necessary. But what the army needs, to address both Gaza and dangers from Hezbollah and the West Bank, is thousands and thousands more combat soldiers. It needs young men, 18-21 years old, who can undergo full training and perform full duty. That’s just not what these charedi applicants were.

Furthermore, those “4000 charedim” that applied were not yeshiva students, and nor were they the mainstream “black-hatted” charedim that Liebowitz describes. They were people on the modern fringes of charedi society. I spoke with one of them and he said that he doesn’t think that he and his fellow applicants could even be described as charedi at all.

As the Knesset report notes, there were some charedim under the age of 26 who drafted to the IDF this year for full service. There were 540 of them (and not from the mainstream charedi world). This is opposed to sixty-six thousand charedim under the age of 26 who applied for, and received, an exemption!

Liebowitz’s mistake about the nature of the applicants leads him to make others. Based on his misunderstanding of the Knesset report, he writes that “the Haredi community has just shown that it is more committed than ever to seeing itself as part of Israel’s national narrative.” If only that were true! Unfortunately, the rabbinic and political leades of the charedi community have made it abundantly clear that they are more committed than ever to not being part of Israel’s national narrative. They are opposed to yeshiva students serving and they are opposed to even non-yeshiva students serving. They are opposed to yeshiva students doing chessed or visiting wounded soldiers. They are even opposed to davenning for soldiers and joining rallies in support of Israel, precisely because this would risk them becoming part of Israel’s national narrative.

In contrast to the myths repeated in the article, charedim do not serve in the IDF in any significant number, and certainly not with mainstream charedi support. The statistic of “there are already 6,000 Haredi men serving” is not a very high number in proportion to the total number of people in the charedi community, which is over one million. It’s also not a very high number in proportion to the hundreds of thousands of non-charedim who serve. And it is further misleading because it is mostly referring to people who are only classified as charedim by expanding and manipulating the definition. “Nachal Charedi,” while a wonderful and important creation, is not the result of the IDF trying to accomodate a flood of charedi interest in joining the IDF; it is home to non-charedim who prefer the more religious framework, and to dropouts from charedi society.

What about secular Israelis? The article notes that “a whopping 32 percent of young military-age Tel Avivis chose not to join the IDF." This is correct, Tel Aviv has among the lowest rate of enlistment in non-charedi Israel. But among non-charedi Israelis overall, enlistment is much higher. And even in Tel Aviv, 68% did draft, and there is certainly no societal opposition to it. This is in sharp contrast to the charedi community, in which hardly anyone drafts, and where there is enormous opposition to it.

Finally, it is crucial to note that it’s not just about what the IDF needs - it’s also about what the country needs. The IDF needs are currently fulfilled by secular and national-religious trained soldiers, many of whom are now reservists. But this means that hundreds of thousands of men are leaving their families, their studies, and their jobs, for many months at a time - and sometimes this means that they don’t have jobs to go back to. They are risking their health and even their lives. This is the terrible hardship and inequality of the past nine months that needs to change. And meanwhile, the growing needs of the IDF means that they are pulling national-religious young men out of hesder and mechina, and they want to extend current service and reserve duty even longer! If the 66,000 charedim currently receiving exemptions drafted, this would not have to happen.

The outcry about charedim not serving in the army is not a left-wing political ploy. It’s something that virtually the entire non-charedi population, including the right wing, agrees about. Nor is it about “hatred of Torah,” as the charedi rabbinic leadership loves to claim. It’s most passionately felt by the national-religious community, who have been suffering most disproportionately from this inequality, and who know full well that it’s perfectly possible to synthesize army service with religious observance and Torah study, because that’s exactly what they do. Just watch or read the searing message from Rav Tamir Granot, Rosh Yeshiva of Orot Shaul, whose son was killed in action.

The only non-charedim claiming that the outcry about charedim is a “left wing political ploy” are those who are themselves engaging a political ploy to prop up the current government. Or those that they have misled. Anyone who is actually in touch with the right-wing national-religious community in Israel understands that this is a national issue.

(See too this post: “The IDF Doesn’t Want Charedim”)