The killing of 14-year-old Yosef Eisenthal, who was run over by a bus during an anti-recruitment protest in an Orthodox district of West Jerusalem on Tuesday night, has brought renewed attention to one of the most contentious issues in Israeli politics: the exemption of ultra-Orthodox Jews from military service.
According to numerous analysts, the scale of the fissure is such that it poses an existential threat to the right-wing coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has so far weathered multiple accusations of genocide in Gaza and criticism over unilateral attacks on regional neighbours.
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Eisenthal was among tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, protesters when he was hit by the bus at an intersection in the Romema neighbourhood. Three other protesters, all reported to be teenagers, were injured in the incident. Israeli media reports say the bus driver had previously been attacked by demonstrators before driving into the crowd.
Netanyahu issued a statement on Wednesday morning, pledging that the incident would be thoroughly investigated and urging “restraint to prevent the mood from becoming further inflamed so that, heaven forbid, we do not have additional tragedies”.
Anger over the exemption of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox students dates back to early attempts in 1999 to formalise what had previously been a de facto arrangement, with Haredi leaders arguing that young men should be allowed to focus on full-time religious study to preserve Jewish law and tradition, rather than be conscripted to join the army, as other Israeli Jews are.
However, legal challenges to the exemption, most recently from the Supreme Court late last year demanding that Haredi recruitment be enforced, combined with reports of manpower shortages linked to Israel’s military conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, have pushed the issue back into the spotlight.
Polls show broad public support for the ending of the exemption, a notion publicly backed by Netanyahu. But two of the prime minister’s key coalition partners, United Torah Judaism (UTJ) and Shas, have repeatedly threatened to withdraw from the government or vote against the state budget, triggering new elections, unless legislation is passed preserving Haredi exemptions or limiting conscription for students at Israel’s ultra-Orthodox schools, known as yeshivas.
“You need to remember, these aren’t political parties in the conventional sense,” Yossi Mekelberg, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, said, characterising UTJ and Shas as operating to the benefit of their community and not wider society. “They are elected as parties to operate as pressure groups inside the Knesset [parliament]. They know that no one outside of their own ultra-Orthodox community will vote for them, and they really have no interest in persuading them to do so.”
“All they have is their own religious base, with a proportion in society that is constantly increasing,” added Mekelberg. “Preserving that base, for the large part, is about keeping them out of the army where they might encounter different types of approaches to religion, including secularism, which their rabbis are afraid would tempt and corrupt them.”
Bitter debate
Despite the limited deaths, the Israeli army has incurred compared to the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed during its genocidal war on Gaza, anger over the Haredi communities’ apparent exemption from the draft has grown among a society fractured from two years of unrelenting conflict.
An autumn poll last year showed an overwhelming number of Israeli respondents saw the societal schism between secular and ultra-Orthodox Israelis as one of the most divisive issues facing contemporary Israel.
Responding to the death of Eisenthal, UTJ’s Meir Porush told reporters, “It is impossible to ignore the fact that more than once during demonstrations by the ultra-Orthodox public, there is a public atmosphere that it is permissible to harm the demonstrators.”
“The situation in which incitement is rampant against the ultra-Orthodox public is causing Jews to fear for their safety in the Land of Israel,” Porush continued. “I call on all public leaders to call for an end to the harm and incitement against the ultra-Orthodox public.”
“There’s very little sympathy for the ultra-Orthodox among much of Israeli society,” Ori Goldberg, an Israeli political analyst, said. “They’ve gone to great lengths to distance themselves from the rest of the population, so most people don’t really care … Israeli society is broken.”
Divisive
From Israel’s creation in 1948, a handful of highly skilled ultra-Orthodox scholars were granted exemptions from Israel’s mandatory military service, which applies to most Jewish citizens. However, over the years, the influence of influential religious parties, such as Shas and UTJ, has led to a significant increase in the number of military exemptions, currently estimated at about 90 percent of the 13,000 ultra-Orthodox men who reach conscription age each year.
While Shas and UTJ only hold 18 seats in the parliament, the fractured nature of Israeli politics and Netanyahu’s reliance upon the right have given the ultra-Orthodox a disproportionate level of influence.
“It’s true that they don’t have many seats, but Netanyahu absolutely needs their support to maintain his coalition and remain prime minister,” Mitchell Barak, an Israeli pollster and former political aide to several senior Israeli political figures, including Netanyahu, told Al Jazeera. “It’s true that the ultra-Orthodox parties also need Netanyahu and his government to have any power and relevance in their own communities. But the draft issue is everything. To them, if they lose this: they have nothing.”
Increasing influence
Across Israel, the Haredi are a growing social and political constituency, with both their political heft and the influence of religion across society increasing as their numbers do.
In 2009, the Haredi made up 9.9 percent of Israel’s population. By 2065, they are forecast to make up more than 30 percent. Alongside this growth, ultra-Orthodox parties are making sure their members’ interests are served and that they remain loyal: all of which could spell problems for Israel’s future.
“Parties like Shas and UTJ rely on keeping its younger members religious and reliant upon benefits,” Mekelberg said.
“This is a serious problem, because their numbers are growing,” he added. “An ultra-Orthodox family will typically have six to seven children. It’s unlikely that any of the boys will ever study core subjects like maths or science. Instead, they’ll go to the yeshiva and live off benefits. This is a real demographic problem. And this isn’t a future problem. It’s one that’s happening now.”