The law governing the exemption for seminary students expired last year, but the government continued to allow them not to serve. The Supreme Court ruled that in the absence of a new legal basis for the exemption, the state must draft them. The ruling also barred seminaries from receiving state subsidies if scholars avoid service without deferrals or exemptions.
The waivers also have wider economic impact. The ultra-Orthodox make up 13% of Israel’s 10 million population, a figure expected to reach 19% by 2035 due to their high birth rates.
The conscription waiver keeps some of the community in seminaries and out of the workforce, hindering economic growth and placing a welfare burden on middle-class taxpayers.
Israel’s 21% Arab minority are also mostly exempted from the draft.
It was just 5% in 2002.
At least two thirds of these people were born there in the last two decades and likely have exactly the same barriers to choosing to live somewhere else as any of us in trying to leave wherever we might currently be stuck.
If Israel ends they likely wouldn’t be kicked out of the new country either, they’d be welcomed to the new state unlike the settler generations, particularly as part of their religious beliefs is to actively oppose the existence of a Jewish state at all.
Not true of all orthodox. Plenty of orthodox jews in Israel are zionist. Some are just opposed to the secularity of the current state and would have no objections to an orthodox religious state in Palestine.
Orthodox and ultra-orthodox are not the same jews. The ultra-orthodox are Haredi Jews and are rarely zionist. The only Haredi that support zionism are the Chardal to my knowledge.
I’m seeing a lot of Breslov and guys among the protesters preventing the aid trucks from getting to Gaza. Now, these a likely Ba’alei t’shuva based on how they are dressed. And there are some messianic Chabad flags too.
I would not put it past Israelis to be cosplaying as an op or an attempt to swing more of these groups to zionism. If there are infiltrators in our crowds doing ops there are infiltrators in theirs as well.
Not saying that it explains all of them but the general rarity of this among the ultra orthodox makes me think there’s something ratty happening.