Boaz Bismuth, chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, announced on Sunday that he will advance temporary legislation to halt the arrests of Haredi draft dodgers for 90 days.

Bismuth’s announcement, in a letter addressed to Defense Minister Israel Katz and Yossi Fuchs, the cabinet secretary, comes amid a bid to resolve a coalition crisis with less than four months to go until elections. It also comes as a series of mass Haredi demonstrations over the arrests of draft dodgers have blocked traffic and targeted police and judges in recent weeks.

Haredi parties have boycotted coalition legislation in protest of the government’s failure to pass a bill enshrining blanket exemptions from military service for yeshiva students. Now, the government is advancing two key Haredi priorities: a quasi-constitutional basic law that would effectively place Torah study on par with military service, which was the subject of a stormy Knesset discussion on Sunday, and the measure to freeze the arrests of Haredi draft evaders.

Earlier on Sunday, Defense Minister Israel Katz called for a moratorium on arrests of Haredi draft evaders, pushing Bismuth to hold an “urgent hearing” on a proposal to end such enforcement. Katz’s letter followed a similar one from Fuchs.

In his own letter on Sunday, Bismuth said he will convene his committee this week to discuss such a freeze, which would be enacted as a temporary order, according to a copy of the letter posted by opposition Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern.

“Continuing the policy of arrests is likely to harm conscription efforts and to shrink the scope of those who enlist in practice,” Bismuth wrote, citing Fuchs’s letter. “In actuality, the arrests achieve the opposite of what is intended, and push young Haredim away from a path of service.”

According to the text of the bill released by the committee, the temporary order would suspend arrests, investigations, and other enforcement measures for 90 days against full-time yeshiva students eligible for military service.

Under the proposal, a yeshiva student would be defined as someone studying at least 45 hours a week at a recognized........

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