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The policy dates to Israel’s beginnings in 1948, when David Ben-Gurion, the nation’s founding prime minister, granted the exemption to the 400 yeshiva students in the country at the time. Ben-Gurion envisioned their Torah study — which they believed would safeguard Israel from its enemies — as part of a revitalization of Jewish religious scholarship lost in the Holocaust.
But as the ultra-Orthodox population grew, the policy was extended, setting off backlash and legal challenges over many years. It did not help that the most extreme ultra-Orthodox sects were anti-Zionists who do not recognize the state of Israel because, they say, it was founded by secular Jews and not for a divine purpose.
In June 2024, the Israeli Supreme Court finally ruled in a landmark decision that without a formal law there was no legal basis for the exemption, and ordered the military to begin drafting ultra-Orthodox men.
The paradoxes that currently surrounds the #IDF and #Israel's continued occupation outside of the 1967 borders is startling in how interlocking they are […]
[Original post on liberal.city]
