Angered by government efforts to detain draft evaders, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community has risen in revolt in recent weeks, threatening to derail Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s legislative agenda while simultaneously bringing chaos to the country’s streets through a series of increasingly violent demonstrations.

The arrests ramped up last month after police announced that they would begin detaining draft evaders they had previously allowed to go free, in line with a recent court ruling.

Over the past two years, the military has sent out tens of thousands of enlistment orders to members of the ultra-Orthodox community whose exemptions from mandatory service in the Israel Defense Forces were revoked under a 2024 High Court ruling. Most have ignored the orders, leading to large numbers of young men being classified as evaders and made subject to arrest or other sanctions.

Some 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged between 18 and 24 are currently believed to be eligible for military service, but have not enlisted, despite a persistent IDF manpower shortage.

The police’s decision to ramp up enforcement came only days after the Knesset’s Haredi factions announced that they would seek to dissolve the Knesset and trigger early elections over the coalition’s failure to pass a controversial law restoring yeshiva students’ draft exemptions.

Since then, ultra-Orthodox lawmakers have ramped up their rhetoric, threatening a tax revolt; calling on police to disobey orders; demanding local authorities halt cooperation with law enforcement; and even threatening to go after Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara — a major proponent of enforcement operations — “with sticks and stones.”

This rhetoric has been accompanied by action by members of the ultra-Orthodox community, especially those affiliated with the so-called hardline Jerusalem Faction, who have taken to the streets in an effort to block the arrests.

On Wednesday morning, Haredi protesters blocked traffic near the central Israeli city of Bnei Brak, during an anti-draft demonstration that became violent, with police using stun grenades and batons to disperse participants.

Later on in the day, thousands of Haredi demonstrators from a different sect gathered outside the........

© The Times of Israel