Demonstrators block Highway 4 in the area of the Coca-Cola intersection, ultra-Orthodox protest the recruitment/documentation law in social networks according to Section 27 A of the Copyright Law, David Keshet
On August 1, 2012, the second postponement period for recruiting the ultra-Orthodox to the army was supposed to end.
The High Court informed the government that the "Tal Law", enacted for the purpose of postponing the conscription, is unconstitutional and therefore cannot be extended any longer. To prepare for Judgment Day, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu established the "Felsner Committee for Equal Burden", which was composed of members of the Knesset and public figures, and is supposed to Recommendations were to be formulated by the end of July that would be agreed upon by the members of the house.
The committee headed by Yochanan Plesner, then MK and now president of the Democracy Institute, lasted less than a month and a half. When representatives of Israel Beytinu and the Jewish Home withdrew from it in protest, Netanyahu declared that it was canceled because it would not be able to formulate a recommendation that would obtain a majority in the Knesset, creating a coalition crisis around the explosive issue. "M accused Pelsner of not discussing the recruitment of Arabs for civil service and insisting on the recruitment of the ultra-Orthodox to the IDF. Pelsner, for his part, submitted an independent report, in which he published his recommendations and a goal of 80% recruiting ultra-Orthodox and imposing heavy fines on evaders and the yeshiva where they study.
Plesner.
"I didn't buy the ultra-Orthodox recruitment. We saw the November-December recruitment, where the recruitment targets were between 250 and 300 ultra-Orthodox and they were not met despite the war"/Oded Antman
Immediate treatment is required
12 years have passed since then.
The Pelsner report was buried, the conscription of the ultra-Orthodox was postponed again and again with many pretenses, and then the disaster of October 7th came and shook the heads of the Sifs.
The small, smart and technological army, which we all thought would easily protect us, was seen as unprepared and not large enough to face the seemingly simple challenges of "once upon a time" warfare.
The lack of soldiers became critical.
The trend of shortening the service gave way to a law that dramatically and immediately extends it and the number of reserve days.
One of the most difficult issues of Israeli society, which has been repeatedly pushed back by the politicians for years, is now placed on the table in front of us, and the burdened subjects, who sacrifice lives, businesses, families and precious time, and are anxious for the fate of the country, demand that it be dealt with here and immediately.
Plesner, who has accumulated mileage on the subject over the past 12 years, calls the situation we were in until October 6 "unstable equilibrium."
On the one hand, among the state and state religious public, the rate of recruits was 89%.
But one figure has not changed: the nominal rate of recruits, even though the demographic figures of the ultra-orthodox have almost doubled.
According to data from the Institute for Democracy, in 2021 31.4% of Jewish men aged 18 were exempted from conscription and 68.6% enlisted.
Of the exemptions, 17.6% are for reasons of "theology and art - almost all of them are ultra-Orthodox. 19.5% of the ultra-Orthodox were exempted for other reasons. In 2021, 1,185 defined as ultra-Orthodox enlisted in the IDF.
70% of the ultra-Orthodox who do enlist in the IDF do not define themselves as ultra-Orthodox. In the same year, another 569 of those who define themselves as ultra-Orthodox enlisted in the civil service, a number that will decrease to 480 in 2022
. -40% of the recruitment cycle According to public opinion polls and by the Research Administration of the Ministry of Economy, less than half of the civil service employees (47.4%) worked at the end of their service.
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The segmentation of the ultra-orthodox yearbook.
Source: Israel Democracy Institute/screenshot, Israel Democracy Institute
"Less than half enlist"
In 2019 and 2023, the number of ultra-Orthodox recruits was 1,100.
But the recruitment cycles have changed: in 2019 the recruitment cycle was 7,000 ultra-Orthodox and in 2023 about 13,000 ultra-Orthodox.
"This reduced the number of enlisted men among male Jews to only 68%," says Pelsner, "and in the general population, including women and Arabs, to less than 50%. It is difficult to talk about mandatory conscription before the war, when less than half enlisted. The solutions they found to reduce the The glaring inequality was to shorten the service to two years and give the army the option to increase it in specific units to two and a half years, and to pay for the difference. If we talk about the scale between the people's army and a mercenary army, there was a shift towards the professional army. With the ultra-Orthodox, all the arrangements did not work. Neither did the directorate of the civil service It did not succeed, neither in quality nor in quantity."
Why, in fact, didn't the IDF become a professional mercenary army like in the USA?
"Because the bottom line is that there is no model of a professional army that knows how to give a qualitative military answer. We are looking for the best quality fighters, the best among the youth and we cannot allow ourselves to compromise on quality and quantity. In the studies we conduct, we see an increase in support for a professional army among the young. They are smart , these young people. From their point of view, if we are already enlisting, that they will pay us properly. Who supports this model the most? The ultra-Orthodox. From their point of view, just leave us alone."
"On October 7, the need for the amount of fighters physically deployed in the field at any point in time rose dramatically, and with it came the necessity of the heavy burden law that expresses it. "An unbridgeable gap is created between those who sacrifice themselves and those who do not participate.
In our research, we see a change in the right and in religious Zionism towards a duty of service and equality in the burden."
There is an explicit demand on their part for action that did not exist before.
"What made the current situation possible is the partnership between the right and the ultra-Orthodox.
Only last weekend the Minister of Finance wrote that he is committed to this alliance. The Zionist consensus on the exemption policy will not change if it is not translated into a political alliance that will bring about change."
In the government of change there were no ultra-Orthodox and the status quo regarding equality in the burden has not changed.
"The government of change was formed with 60 against 59 members of the Knesset and for the first time in the history of the State of Israel, with Arab representation. On this issue there is an alliance between the ultra-Orthodox and the Arabs who will not enact laws on each other's heads. There was a fragile coalition, so such a move had no chance. But we are behind October 7 and there is a need for a broad Zionist alliance, one that fixes the People's Army, the state's attitude towards the ultra-Orthodox public, the disputes surrounding the legal reform. That the spirit of the reservists on the battlefield will also enter the political system. Or the state Zionist public. If we take away the right of veto from the ultra-Orthodox, such an alliance could be formed."
The increase in the amount of Yeshiva and Ebrach.
Source: Israel Democracy Institute/screenshot, Israel Democracy Institute
In the Prime Minister's speech after Gallant's announcement, that he would only present a conscription law that would be acceptable to the coalition partners, it did not seem that he changed his position regarding the ultra-orthodox, but quite the opposite
.
My musical ear needed to hear no more.
I've been doing this for 15 years and recruiting goals are a farce, it doesn't work, because they apply to the system and not to the individual.
In the world of the recruiting targets of the 'Tal Law', those who want to serve will serve, and those who don't want to, will not serve, because they will receive an arrangement of 'his teachings and his art' and from there the road to exemption is paved.
"The Prime Minister will say that he is interested in a service obligation, only that he does not specify the enforcement measures, because there are none.
When they say we will settle for targets, who determines what they are and how they are implemented, and what are the enforcement tools?
The Tal Law has goals and no enforcement.
In the foreseeable future, it is not wise to send military police and ban the ultra-Orthodox.
What can be done is to give economic incentives, larger release grants and a new contract for military men."
The assumption that large release grants will motivate ultra-Orthodox to enlist is naive. They are not interested in getting rich beyond the allowances they receive, certainly if it involves enlisting in the IDF.
"These were the incentives. But there should also be sanctions and withholding of budgets. Those who do not serve and are not included in the exemption quota will not be able to benefit from the state's budgetary incentives. All this is assuming that a Zionist political alliance will indeed be established in which they will not only talk about the title, but there will be a real willingness to make sure that my Those who do not serve do not receive budgets and guaranteed income for the families. Also, discounts on property taxes, water and housing will be denied to them."
Immediately after the massacre in the Gaza Strip, the IDF reported a wave of approximately 3,000 requests from ultra-Orthodox who wanted to enlist in the war effort. At the end of October, 120 soldiers from the sector were recruited who had undergone two weeks' training and were considered reservists already upon their enlistment, and were integrated as combat supporters. It turns out that the desire to take part in carrying the burden It was not one-off, but marks a real shift among those who saw the ultra-Orthodox who enlisted as ostracized out of disgust.
A joint study by Dr. Yael Itzhaki Baron from the School of Social Work and Dr. Nahomi Yaffe from the School of Public Policy at Tel Aviv University examined the stigma against ultra-Orthodox who enlist in the IDF Among the ultra-orthodox society. Before the war, the conscripts were seen as failures, harming the prestige of the family, less successful in finding a good match, and their children encounter difficulties in being admitted to quality educational institutions.
In about 25 years, ultra-Orthodox will make up about 40% of the recruitment cycle/screenshot, Israel Democracy Institute
less stigmas
After the outbreak of the war, Itzhaki and Yifa contacted the respondents in the previous study again to check if there had been a change in their attitudes following the security situation, and discovered that there had been a noticeable decrease in stigma among parts of the ultra-Orthodox community, who are considered more conservative.
So there has indeed been some kind of shift, even if it is not reflected in the attack on the Jewish Committee.
Pelsner also recognizes this change: "In our research we see a positive change in the attitude of the ultra-orthodox public to state institutions and their sense of belonging.
I didn't buy the ultra-Orthodox recruitment.
The army needs young fighters and not at the age of 38 for three weeks.
It has symbolic rather than practical value.
We saw the November-December recruitment, where the recruitment targets were between 250 and 300 ultra-Orthodox and were not met despite the war.
We have reached 80% of the target and many of them are considered ultra-Orthodox even though they are not actually ultra-Orthodox.
"The positive sentiment that we recognize does not translate into meaningful service at a young enough age, to really help the army. It is not reflected in the rhetoric and willingness of the leadership that wants a new 'telephone law', which makes an amorphous statement about 'recruitment of those who are not really studying' and continues to imprison my boys The Yeshivam in the Kollelim. The discourse of goals should move from the world."
To what extent does integration into the labor market contribute to the willingness to recruit among the ultra-Orthodox?
"The premise is that as you integrate into economic life and meet other people in the population, integration brings more integration. 90% of those who serve in the IDF integrate into the employment market.
Those who serve in the civil service acquire fewer civic skills and integrate less."
So the idea of the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gabir, to recruit ultra-Orthodox to the police could be a success.
"We support civil service in the police, firefighting and the Shin Bet, and even in the Home Front Command, because these State frameworks that provide real security assistance and the chance of creating fictitious routes and frauds decreases. In the civil service practiced today, the body receives money, the recruit registers and does nothing, and the state and he lose. In any case, the great mass should be in actual military service.
"It should be emphasized that even if we start now I I don't think that in the foreseeable future we will reach the recruitment rates of the secular public.
In the interim period, a quota of outstanding students will be decided and those who do not have an exemption and did not exercise the conscription will not receive budgeting from the state, will have to take responsibility and go to work, so there are also economic implications here."
According to Plessner, "we no longer have the option of withdrawing the conscription law from year to year.
Everyone understands the need for the people's army, a large and high-quality army, so this gives a reasonable basis for assuming that there is a historical potential for change here.
Will it be realized?
There's no telling."
More on the same topic:
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Haredim recruitment
IDF
Equal burden
The Israel Institute for Democracy
Yohanan Plesner