A Year Since the Supreme Court’s Conscription Ruling – Was It Real, or Just a Dream?
Exactly one year ago, Israel's Supreme Court ruled—in a measured manner—that the state must follow its own laws on drafting Haredim. But of the 19,000 summons issued by early June 2025, only about 5% (996) reported to induction centers, and just 1.2% (232) were actually conscripted.
Photo by Chaim Goldberg/FLASH90 | The saying on the banner: “Shall your brethren go to war, and shall you sit here?”
One year ago today, on June 25, 2024, Israel's Supreme Court made a critical ruling: given the expiration of the legal framework allowing for exemption from military service for yeshiva students in June 2023, ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) young men are obligated to enlist—just like their secular, traditional, and national religious counterparts.
A year has passed, yet neither the Supreme Court, nor the IDF, nor the government has succeeded in significantly enlisting Haredim—even during wartime. Many opponents of the Court's decision have framed the ruling as a judicial revolution, legal activism, or an expression of the Attorney General’s dominance, but the simple truth must be stated: it was a modest restrained, and rather dry ruling. It affirmed what any first-year law student knows: if the law granting an exemption has expired, then the exemption itself has expired.
To recall: it was the Netanyahu government—together with the ultra-Orthodox parties—that legislated in 2015 the relevant section of the Security Service Law, providing the exemption for yeshiva students. That law was explicitly temporary, set for only seven years. In 2017, the Supreme Court struck it down as unconstitutional, holding that it failed to sufficiently mitigate the serious violation of equality posed by exempting yeshiva students. Yet, true to form in matters of religion and state, the Court allowed the Knesset time to legislate a new arrangement that would better advance equality. Each year, the Court extended the deadline—until June 2023, when the exemption clause expired, in accordance with the lawmakers’ own design.
This measured approach is characteristic of the Supreme Court's consistent stance on matters of religion-and-state. On controversial issues like the question of "Who is a Jew," conversion, observance of Shabbat, and women’s prayer at the Western Wall, the Court has consistently delayed decisions for over a decade, allowing the legislature a chance to act—despite having petitioners before it seeking the Court's intervention. When the Knesset failed to roll up its sleeves and take action on these sensitive issues, the Court was left with no choice but to rule, earning it the label—often unfairly—of “activist.” But in the ruling from a year ago, this was not such a case. Here, the Supreme Court took the law seriously and recognized that the exemption had ceased to exist.
The only additional step taken by the Court was a legally minor and straightforward one—the logical conclusion regarding state funding: without a legal framework exempting yeshiva students from serving, financial support could no longer be provided to yeshiva students who lacked either a deferral or formal exemption. The Attorney General added that the state may not create back-door channels for transferring these funds. This ruling effectively revoked some 480 million NIS in annual support from yeshivas and their students—about 9,500 NIS annually per Haredi scholar at a Kollel (yeshiva for married men).
Legally, this was no revolution. But in practice, the ruling marked a tectonic shift: for the first time, it became clear that Haredim are obligated to enlist, like all other Jewish citizens. The near-zero enlistment rate among young Haredim (1.7% compared to 88% among serving populations) appeared on track to rise.
The Court accepted the state’s assertion that the IDF could not immediately draft all 63,000 eligible Haredi men. It agreed to a target of 4,800 recruits by June 2025—a “minimum starting figure” that, the state pledged, the IDF was already working to increase. The Court noted three guiding considerations: the principle of equality, the IDF’s absorption capacity, and wartime manpower needs.
We have not seen progress towards the embodiment of the principle of equality, which underpinned the Court’s decision. On the contrary: the burden on those who do serve—physically, emotionally, and economically—has only intensified, further exposing the deep inequality of the situation. Manpower needs have also grown due to attrition and casualties. Senior military officials have urgently called for 12,000 new combat and support troops.
The IDF's absorption capacity has also increased. In addition to the 4,800 Haredi recruits it could absorb by summer 2025, the military announced it could take in 5,760 more in the following year, and from summer 2026 onward, absorb the entire Haredi male cohort—about 14,500 annually. Without the age-26 exemption, the eligible “pool” could reach upwards of 90,000 by then. Naturally, the IDF prefers younger recruits capable of replacing reservists, rather than older married men requiring family stipends who are less ideal candidates for service.
Despite all of this, only about 2,700 graduates of Haredi schools were enlisted over the past year (compared to an average of 1,800 in previous years)—about half the minimum target the state presented to the Court. Many of those enlisted no longer identified themselves as Haredi by the time they enlisted, and were not destined for combat or support roles.
Seven follow-up meetings were held to monitor implementation—convened by the Attorney General and including the Military Advocate General, Manpower Directorate officials, and representatives from the Justice and Defense Ministries, the Population Authority, and the police. The state was also required to report to the Supreme Court multiple times. None of this led to significant progress.
The IDF implemented a slow, incremental rollout of draft notices: starting with only 3,000, and only reaching 19,000 by the end of the year—despite knowing from the outset that compliance would be minimal. In review meetings, IDF officials acknowledged they expected no improvement without the implementation of serious penalties for draft dodgers or intervention from ultra-Orthodox leadership. Of the 19,000 summons issued by early June 2025, only about 5% (996) reported to induction centers, and just 1.2% (232) were actually conscripted.
Only after a year of clear failure to meet legal requirements did the IDF begin preparing to issue another 60,000 draft orders. It also began calling for personal penalties—measures imposed on the individual, rather than the yeshivas—including shortening the time between summons and arrest warrants, formally labeling draft evaders as “deserters,” and enabling actual arrests at Ben Gurion Airport and through enforcement operations.
So why didn’t the IDF and Defense Ministry issue draft notices to all eligible Haredim from the outset, as required by law, to reduce inequality and meet minimum quotas?
Was it due to a conflict between the Court's interpretation and contradictory signals from other government officials? Did they assume a new exemption law was imminent and chose to wait, despite the clear legal directive? Did they doubt the potential for social change on this scale, hesitate to allocate wartime resources, or fear that stepping into this volatile dispute would undermine the IDF’s standing? Or were organizational failings and personnel shortages to blame—as one Manpower Directorate official noted, “Stuffing envelopes is work”?
It remains unclear whether the agreements reportedly reached between MK Yuli Edelstein, Chair of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and the Haredi parties before the Iranian military operation were genuine or motivated by operational needs. But one hopes that all parties now understand: immediate, meaningful, and individual-targeted penalties, along with the removal of benefits, are essential if the ship of Israeli reality is to be steered toward complying with the Court's conscription ruling.
According to reports published two weeks ago, the only immediate penalties agreed upon were limited in scope: barring driver’s licenses, restricting travel abroad, and denying academic scholarships. These are symbolic measures that play directly into the hands of those wishing to keep students in yeshiva—after all, driving, flying, and studying at universities all require leaving the yeshiva. These penalties will do nothing to boost enlistment or help the state meet its obligations. Especially troubling is that revoked yeshiva budgets and daycare discounts are expected to be reinstated for draft evaders.
If the government falls back on ineffective, symbolic compromises for Haredi conscription, we may see this matter fall back in the hands of the Supreme Court—and there may be a limit to how far the Court will allow the government to kick the can down the road.
This article was published in the Times of Israel