The Israeli army will soon begin recruiting students from Haredi yeshivas following a Supreme Court ruling mandating that the government enlist them after decades of collective exemptions. In light of the court's decision, Israeli Attorney General Gil Lemont also instructed the Ministry of Defense to implement the ruling, stating that "the commitment of the defense establishment to recruit students from religious schools is already in effect, starting from July 1."
Attorney General Lemont emphasized in a letter to his legal advisor the necessity for 3,000 Haredi Jewish males to perform military service. Currently, there are 63,000 students from religious schools eligible for military service, according to the court ruling and the Attorney General’s orders. However, the Israeli army informed the court that it can recruit around 3,000 only during the 2024 enlistment year, which began in June, compared to an average of about 1,800 recruits each year in recent years.
The "Times of Israel" reported that the army is unlikely to start sending thousands of draft orders today, stating that the Ministry of Defense would need to establish a mechanism to quickly issue recruitment notices. It noted that there are "two main options" available to the army: the first is to conduct a random lottery among eligible recruits regardless of their number, indicating that implementing such a mechanism would lead to direct confrontation with the Haredi community and its leadership, potentially resulting in the drafting of "elite" students from religious schools, viewed as the "jewel" of the Haredi community.
Shlomit Ravitsky Tur-Paz, director of the Religion and State program at the Israeli Democracy Institute, mentioned that the second alternative is to "recruit less significant groups, namely young individuals from the contemporary Haredi society," including those who attend "intermittent religious schools" that do not fully commit to religious studies.
