Why conscription for Haredim could be a win-win

There are pressing political and cultural imperatives for the government to persuade Haredi leaders to rethink their opposition to compulsory national service.  

The discussion around the role of Haredim in Israeli society is driven by corresponding concerns on both sides. The secular majority is motivated by the dread of Haredi encroachment on the character of the State, which it fears will also endanger its future security and imperil the economy.

The Haredi minority lives in a state of alertness, vigilant to ensure that its devout way of life is protected and that future generations are not drawn away by increasingly pervasive Western-liberal values. They view any attempt at compulsory integration as part of a wider effort to assimilate Haredim, which generates significant resistance from that community.  

It’s common to hear that a proposed Haredi draft exemption, to be enshrined in law, would signal the end of the “people’s army” model in Israel. This is liable to give rise to a faulty inference – that up until now the IDF has implemented universal conscription. In fact, a widespread exemption from army service based on full-time Torah study has existed since 1977 (and in a more limited form since shortly after the founding of the state).

Why all the fuss now? A combination of factors - Israel’s constitutional revolution (which led to a rejection by the High Court of the previously granted exemption), the exponential Haredi population growth and insignificant progress in encouraging Haredi army participation - have brought matters to a head.

As seems to be the case so often in Israel, circumstances have generated a seemingly binary proposition – either universal conscription is to become the norm, or a proposed "Basic Law" will exempt those committed to full-time Torah study from army participation. This is, however, a simplistic dichotomy.

There is a potential win-win solution in which some form of national service could provide vocational training, at the state’s expense, to benefit Haredim in the job market - making those unsuited to or uninterested in Torah study more employable, and in turn ease existing social tensions about their status.