Ultra-Orthodox activists and lawmakers on Wednesday raged against what they described as a “wave of arrests” by the IDF of yeshiva students who ignored enlistment orders and are evading military service, framing the military’s activities as “religious persecution” aimed at criminalizing Torah scholars.

According to the hardline Jerusalem Faction, the IDF resumed enforcement operations last Friday, raiding a number of homes in Jerusalem, the West Bank community of Adam, Ramat Gan, and Givatayim.

Among those the group listed as arrested was Ariel Rosenzweig, a student at the Neve Eretz Yeshiva who was detained during the seven-day mourning period for his late father. The Jerusalem Faction later announced that Rosenzweig had been released from custody.

United Torah Judaism chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf slammed the arrests, claiming that yeshiva students “have been made into criminals — solely because they are Torah learners, all under the auspices of the government of Israel.”

“Following the instructions of our revered sages and leading rabbis of Israel, may they live long, we have withdrawn from the government and the coalition, and we are acting in every possible way to regulate the status of Torah learners — upon whom the world depends,” he declared.

Some 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged between 18 and 24 are currently believed to be eligible for military service, but have not enlisted. The Israel Defense Forces has said it urgently needs 12,000 recruits due to the strain on standing and reserve forces caused by the war against Hamas in Gaza and other military challenges.

For the past year, the Haredi leadership has pushed to pass a law keeping its constituency out of the IDF, after the High Court ruled that decades-long blanket exemptions from army duty traditionally........

© The Times of Israel