Israeli Court Halts Subsidies for Orthodox, Deepening Turmoil Over Mandatory Military Service

Israel’s supreme court on Thursday ordered an end to government subsidies for many fervently Orthodox men who do not serve in the army — a blockbuster ruling that could have far-reaching consequences for the government and the tens of thousands of religious men who refuse to take part in mandatory military service.Prime Minister Netanyahu faces the most serious threat yet to his government as he struggles to bridge a major split over military service in the shaky national unity government cobbled together in the days after the deadly Hamas attacks on October 7.Inside his coalition, the powerful bloc of Orthodox parties — longtime partners of Mr. Netanyahu — want draft exemptions to continue. But the centrist members of his war cabinet, both former military generals, have insisted that all sectors of Israeli society contribute equally during its war against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip.If the Orthodox parties leave the government, the country would be forced into new elections, with Mr. Netanyahu trailing significantly in the polls amid the war.Most Jewish men in Israel are required to serve nearly three years in the military, followed by years of reserve duty. Jewish women serve two mandatory years.Yet the politically powerful Orthodox, who make up roughly 13 percent of Israeli society, have traditionally received exemptions while studying full time in religious seminaries.The exemptions — coupled with government stipends many seminary students receive through age 26 — have infuriated much of the general public. These longstanding tensions have only deepened during nearly six months of war.The supreme court has ruled the current system discriminatory and given the government until Monday to present a new plan and until June 30 to pass it. Mr. Netanyahu on Thursday asked the court for a 30-day extension to find a compromise.The court did not immediately respond to his request. But it issued an interim order barring the government from funding the monthly subsidies for religious students who are between the ages of 18 and 26 and have not received a deferral from the military in the past year. Funds will be frozen starting April 1.The ruling will affect about a third of the 180,000 seminary students who receive subsidies from the government for full-time study, according to Israel’s Channel 12 TV. It said the subsidies could be temporarily covered by the governing coalition’s discretionary funds.Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s top political rival and a member of the three-man war cabinet, praised the court’s decision and said it recognized “the need for soldiers during a difficult war, and the need for everyone in our society to take part in the right to serve the country.”Among Israel’s Jewish majority, mandatory military service is largely seen as a melting pot and rite of passage, and the army has said it is suffering from manpower shortages because of the war in Gaza.The fervently Orthodox say that integrating into the army will threaten their generations-old way of life and that their devout lifestyle and dedication to upholding the Jewish commandments protect Israel as much as a strong army. But it is precisely such a stance that inflames tensions with the secular majority. Religious leaders have vowed to fight attempts to force Orthodox men into the army and have staged mass protests against similar attempts in the past.The head of the Orthodox Shas party, Aryeh Deri, called the court’s decision “unprecedented bullying of Torah students in the Jewish state.”But the group that filed the petitions that led to Thursday’s ruling, the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, hailed the decision as “an historic interim ruling” which signifies the “end of “illegitimate discrimination.”In his letter to the supreme court requesting the extension, Mr. Netanyahu said additional time is needed to come to an agreement, “because it has been proven in the past that enlistment without an agreed-upon arrangement actually has the opposite effect.”

Israeli Court Halts Subsidies for Orthodox, Deepening Turmoil Over Mandatory Military Service

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