The draft law, as currently formulated, is based not on reality but on faith. Faith that the haredim (ultra-Orthodox) want to enlist, as long as the status of yeshiva students is determined and appropriate frameworks are established. Faith that they will report truthfully. Faith that the IDF’s Manpower Directorate and the Defense Ministry will enforce the law. Faith that what is written in the law will actually be implemented in practice.
This collection of faiths has been disproven many times in the past, and therefore necessitates a different name for this draft law: “conceptzia” – a worldview that ignores reality.
Why is it specifically that the right-wing religious Zionist reservists, who understand the importance of coalition stability and know that important political processes often take time, are the ones who oppose this law? Because the law depends on the cooperation of various parties, and these parties have proven over and over again that they do not act, and sometimes do not even want to act, to achieve the stated goal of the law.
Why the haredi draft law won't work
The haredi community on the whole does not want to enlist – they say so openly. There is no rabbinic leadership there calling for enlistment, and the social price paid by a haredi person who enlists is greater than any sanction in the law. Haredi identity is regarded as sacred, and the army is perceived as a threat to it. Therefore, there is no reason to assume that any real internal change would come from their own initiative.
The law exacerbates the problem when it grants exemptions based only on declarations. History teaches that when a religious community seeks to protect what it sees as a sacred value, it is also willing to bend the truth. This is not a moral condemnation, but a psychological understanding of a cultural defense mechanism.
These statements are not speculative. During the establishment of the haredi Hashmonaim Brigade, discussions were held with mashgichim (supervisors) and heads of haredi yeshivot, and most of their demands were met – accommodations, conditions, dedicated frameworks. Even so, neither an existential war nor unprecedented accommodations were able to force an internal discussion within haredi leadership about an obligation to enlist, even for those who are in fact not spending their days studying Torah.
If even the great value of life itself did not outweigh the value of haredi identity in wartime, there is no reason to assume that the value of truth-telling will outweigh it in peacetime. Therefore, a law based on declarations is not a solution, but an illusion. And the belief that it will bring real change is not naïveté, but a conceptzia.
Relying on the oversight mechanisms of the IDF Manpower Directorate and the Defense Ministry is also part of that same conceptzia. In practice, despite a binding law, there is no enlistment. Any oversight that depends on a coalition member, such as the defense minister, is irrelevant when the concern for maintaining government stability outweighs enforcing the law. The coalition does not enforce – and the army acts accordingly.
The security reality requires different thinking. Increasing combat manpower in the immediate term is an urgent necessity, especially in light of the right-wing (and correct) security outlook that seeks maximum control over territory. Rational thinking means learning from history, identifying who failed in implementing the draft, and removing them from the system. Neither the Manpower Directorate, the political echelon, nor haredi society itself, should continue to hold authority to grant exemptions.
At the same time, the law must focus on expanding military ranks, not on expanding the definition of “sharing the burden” so that Torah study is counted as such merely to create a false sense of equality. Enough. We’ve waited two years for a promise that never came, while security challenges grow at the expense of the existing manpower.
Total victory is not achieved through false faith, but through difficult decisions. It requires serious, painful thinking, especially regarding the immediate term. This draft law does not do that.
The writer is a member of the Religious Zionist Reservists Forum.