Tens of thousands of Ultra-Orthodox Israelis were gathering in Jerusalem on Thursday for a mass demonstration against efforts to enlist some of them in the military, a protest that will likely deepen divisions in a country reeling from two years of war.
The show of force comes amid efforts by the Israeli government to find a legal and political compromise to end the decades-old practice of granting exemptions from military service for most ultra-Orthodox seminary students.
That privilege has long stirred widespread public resentment that has become more acute since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which ignited the wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Hundreds of soldiers have died in those conflicts and tens of thousands of reservists have served multiple tours of duty.
Military service is compulsory in Israel for most Jewish 18-year-olds, both men and women.
Israel’s Supreme Court ruled last year that there was no legal basis for allowing the military exemptions and that, in the absence of new legislation, the army must begin drafting ultra-Orthodox Jewish men.
The military has said that it needs 12,000 more soldiers to fill its ranks. Tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox men of draft age currently do not serve.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long relied on the support of ultra-Orthodox parties to remain in power. The government is working on a bill that would go some way to addressing the military’s needs that would also keep Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing and religiously conservative coalition intact.
Critics of the proposed bill say it would continue to allow most ultra-Orthodox Israelis to avoid being drafted, with low quotas for enlistment and minimal, delayed sanctions imposed on those who do not comply.
Leaders of the ultra-Orthodox community, known in Hebrew as the Haredim, or “those who tremble before God,” have dubbed the demonstration on Thursday a “march of the million” and advertised it as a prayer vigil rather than a protest.
The gathering will be centered around the western entrance to Jerusalem, and was expected to cause major disruptions in the city and beyond. A long section of the main Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway was closed in both directions to all traffic other than buses ferrying demonstrators, while the city’s train station, situated near the western entrance, was also expected to be shut.
The founders of modern Israel exempted Haredi seminary students from military service when the state was created in 1948, in part to try to rehabilitate the ranks of Torah scholarship that were decimated in the Holocaust.
At that time, there were only a few hundred such students, but the Haredim now make up at least 13 percent of Israel’s population of 10 million.
Isabel Kershner, a Times correspondent in Jerusalem, has been reporting on Israeli and Palestinian affairs since 1990.
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