Thousands of ultra-Orthodox men gathered in Jerusalem on Thursday to protest against conscription into Israel's army.
Crowds of protesters wearing black marched along main roads into Jerusalem. Some set fire to pieces of tarpaulin as police cordoned off streets across the city. One boy fell to his death after young protesters entered a skyscraper under construction near the city's central station.
The crowds demanded an ironclad exemption from Israel's military service – a long-running point of contention. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long pledged such a law but one has not been passed.
A ruling at the time of Israel's foundation in 1948, when the ultra-Orthodox were a very small community, gave exemption to men who devote themselves full-time to the study of sacred texts. That exemption has come under mounting pressure since war erupted in Gaza in October 2023, as the military struggles to fill its ranks.
“We're not here to show the Israelis that we don't want to go to the army. We want to show them that we're here with God,” Eli, a 20-year-old protester from the US who is studying at a Jewish religious school in Israel, told The National. “We're showing God that we're with him.
“I believe in fighting in the army. Everyone that could fight in the army should fight in the army,” he said over the sound of prayers being broadcast on loudspeakers, but “someone who's learning should stay and learn”.
Responding to the call of two ultra-Orthodox parties – one of which forms a key part of Mr Netanyahu's coalition – protesters travelled from all over Israel to demand the exemption stay in place. Police announced the mobilisation of 2,000 officers in Jerusalem.
Demonstrators were densely packed near the train station, where the police were out in force, although participants did not expect trouble during the main part of the event while rabbis were in attendance. Crowds marched over Jerusalem's Chords Bridge, one of the city's landmarks.
Loudspeakers broadcast the prayers chanted by rabbis, with young men reading from sheets. The crowd included Hebrew speakers but also accents from the diaspora, such as Britain, the US, South Africa and France. Some were studying at a yeshiva, a place of Jewish study, in Israel and not facing the draft themselves, but had been told to demonstrate support for their comrades in the country.
A group of young people, who did not have smartphones or cameras for religious reasons, entered the skyscraper building site and asked for photos from journalists, watched by Palestinian builders. But the mood turned when news emerged that a boy had fallen from the sixth floor, and emergency services arrived at the scene.
In June 2024, Israel's supreme court ruled that the state must draft ultra-Orthodox men, declaring that their exemption had expired. A parliamentary committee is now discussing a bill to call them up.
The issue has placed Mr Netanyahu's coalition under severe strain. In July, ministers from the ultra-Orthodox Shas party resigned from the cabinet over the issue, though the party has not formally left the coalition.
A second ultra-Orthodox party, United Torah Judaism, has quit both the government and the coalition. Shas, which holds 11 seats in the 120-member Knesset, has warned it will withdraw support unless military service exemptions are anchored in law – a move that could topple Mr Netanyahu's coalition.
Some ultra-Orthodox rabbis fear conscription will make young people less religious, but others accept that those who do not study holy texts full-time can enlist. Ultra-Orthodox Jews make up 14 per cent of Israel's Jewish population, or about 1.3 million people, and 66,000 men of military age currently benefit from the exemption.
According to an army report presented to parliament in September, there has been a sharp increase in the number of ultra-Orthodox Jews enlisting despite opposition from their leaders, but the numbers still remain low, at a few hundred over the past two years.
