JERUSALEM – Yehoshua Pfeffer is a popular British-born haredi rabbi in Jerusalem. He is unusual among the religious leaders in the ultra-Orthodox world because he believes that haredim can and should integrate into and contribute more to the wider Israeli society even as they uphold their Torah observance.
Arguably the most fraught implication of this belief is that large numbers of haredi men should join the Israeli military rather than receive draft exemptions that allow them to spend their early adulthood studying instead of serving. After Israel’s High Court struck down the decades-long exemption for haredi yeshiva students in 2024, the vast majority of draft-age haredi men have refused to serve in the military.
The issue of whether to force them to do so is at the center of Israeli politics heading into the Oct. 27 elections.
When asked last month which issues will have the “greatest influence” for them at the ballot box, Jewish respondents to an August 2026 Israel Democracy Institute poll ranked haredi IDF conscription in third place. Only foreign affairs/security and the economy/high cost of living took precedence.
Another survey, by Hiddush: Freedom of Religion for Israel, found that 66% of Jewish Israelis would prefer a broad post-election government that either excludes haredi parties entirely or loudly rejects their demand for a sweeping military exemption and large government subsidies.
Pfeffer’s party could bridge that gap. He chairs the rabbinic committee of a new haredi political party called The Haredi Public. The party promotes the introduction of secular studies in haredi K–12 schools (most boys’ schools currently teach only the most basic math and English); the normalization of employment for those who seek it; and IDF conscription for men who are not full-time yeshiva students.
The party hopes to attract the unknown percentage of haredi voters who want to work full-time and not rely on public assistance or philanthropy.
An estimated 34-40% of Haredi families live at or below the poverty line, due to the community’s high birthrate and the fact that only about half of Haredi men are employed. For those who work, employment can be limited by their lack of knowledge in the secular subjects needed for an advanced degree or even jobs that require a high school education.
Israel’s long-standing haredi political parties, which promote the views of the country’s most powerful rabbis, are dead set against requiring haredi young men to serve whether or not they’re studying.
Pfeffer explained that he sees things differently, and not just because “Israel needs the haredi community to contribute more to society; we need it for our own sustainability.”
The war that followed the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas has changed perceptions among at least some haredim, he said.
“It internalized for us that whatever was before isn’t going to continue. We have to be part of Israel,” he explained. “If the haredi community at large wants to ensure that true Torah scholars can continue to study and be great rabbinic leaders, we have to ensure that everyone else serves in the IDF, doing their part, protecting our nation.”
However, he doesn’t want draft dodgers to be arrested. That type of crackdown “plays into the hands of the extremists,” he said, referring to people who want to stop the draft of haredim at all costs. Instead, the next government “needs to establish a way to incentivize those who go into the army.”
Pfeffer’s party probably won’t receive the number of votes needed to win a place in the Knesset, according to the polls, and Pfeffer understands it’s a steep uphill climb to surpass the 3.25% of the nationwide vote that a party needs to win at the ballot box to sit in the Knesset.
As a brand new party just establishing itself, its members have only recently gotten the word out through interviews, podcasts and parlor meetings. Additionally, it’s not clear how strongly its message resonates with the haredi public, which largely continues to vote for the party their rabbis tell them to support.
But Pfeffer sees a victory just in establishing the new party, which also stands out from the established ultra-Orthodox parties by making two of its top four candidates women.
Even if they don’t get into the Knesset, he said, “We are presenting an alternative, a voice, a vision of what this new idea looks like. If we don’t make it this time, we’ll make it next time. There’s a palpable excitement.”
Pfeffer said members of his party and its mission have been “very warmly received” by greater Israeli society, and that many members of the haredi public have privately expressed support for the party and its principles.
“There is an understanding that the sheer size of our community doesn’t give us the ability to continue the way we did in the past,” he said. Today, the haredi community represents about 14% of the Israeli population. When Prime Minister Ben-Gurion granted 400 full-time yeshiva students an exemption from IDF service in 1948, he could never have imagined that in 2026, tens of thousands of haredi men would refuse to serve.
Mixed feelings among haredim
In contrast with Pfeffer, on a recent morning in the ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood of Geula, many people refused to discuss the issue. Those who did shared radically different opinions.
Like most haredi young men, Moshe Shmaya, a 33-year-old full-time yeshiva student, rejected calls for change within haredi society, because, he said, it would expose the community to values contrary to Torah and destroy its unique way of life.
“Israel considers itself a democracy, yet forcing people into the army is anti-democratic. The government starts wars and then expects us to participate,” Shmaya said while waiting for a bus to take him from the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Geula to prayers at the Western Wall. “But the main issue is that army service is incompatible with a haredi lifestyle: non-kosher food, female soldiers, not having enough time to pray and learn Torah.”
In response to these concerns, the IDF has created a haredi battalion to meet the specific requirements of haredi soldiers. The battalion has no female instructors and its food abides by the highest level of kosher certification. Prayer three times a day and Jewish study are a given, except under certain combat conditions. About 1,000 active-duty ultra-Orthodox soldiers serve in the battalion, while another 2,000 or so serve in other units.
Shmaya was aware of the unit but said it didn’t ease his concerns. “I personally don’t trust the army, and it’s really all about trust,” he explained.
However, David Levy, a Hassid man wearing a black bekishe, white knee socks and a tall streimel on his head, was more open to the idea.
While he had not heard of the Haredi Public party, he said its vision for haredi conscription “sounds interesting.”
“Since the war, I’ve come to realize that we can’t take Israel’s survival for granted,” Levy, a school administrator, said. “While I think that every young man should spend a few years in yeshiva study, I understand that the army needs soldiers right now. Hopefully we can find a way to allow thousands of young men to study in yeshiva while removing the stigma of military service for those who want to serve.
“Regardless of what anyone says, we all want Israel to survive and prosper,” Levy said.
Exhausted reservists
For one IDF reservist who has spent more than 600 days in uniform since the outbreak of war on Oct. 7, 2023, ensuring a haredi draft cannot come soon enough.
“It would be impossible to draft all of the tens of thousands of haredim who refuse to serve, but ensuring that more do serve would decrease the burden on those who do service,” said the reservist, a businessman whose livelihood has been impacted by his lengthy absences. He asked that his name not be published due to his position in the army.
Adding to the hardship that so many days of reserve duty have caused his family – who became temporarily homeless after their community on the Gaza border was attacked on Oct. 7, leading to its extended evacuation and their relocation to Jerusalem – is the lack of respect many haredim have for soldiers risking their lives and their families, the IDF reservist observed.
“For much of the war my wife has been alone with our children, and for a long time she didn’t know whether the next time I left home would be the last time she saw me alive,” he recalled while sitting in his home with his family in south Jerusalem. Meanwhile, “there are rabbis telling their students that military service is incompatible with being Orthodox, and to not pray for soldiers. I studied Gemorra for several years. The two aren’t incompatible.”
When Avi Losice, a Jerusalem resident, goes to vote on Oct. 27, the refusal of most haredi young men to serve in the IDF will be on the top of his mind.
Losice’s adult children have served around 700 and 400 days respectively in the IDF reserves over the last three years. While repeated stints in the military made it impossible for them to work and study for long stretches of time since Oct. 7, army-age yeshiva students who have evaded Israel’s mandatory military service have continued to study with the Netanyahu government’s blessing.
“Our reserve soldiers are stretched beyond thin,” Losice said of the dozens of reservists he knows personally, many of them married with children. “Their professional, academic and personal lives are being hammered by extensive service. The only way to give them relief is to spread the responsibility for the country’s security by including the haredi population.”
Modern Orthodox Rabbi Doron Perez, whose son, Captain Daniel Perez, was abducted and murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7, said the haredi draft issue is a “national priority” for the country, and that the need for security and unity, and not his son’s tragic death, will influence his voting choices.
Israel needs “a large and strong army,” Perez said, pointing to the long war and the toll it has taken on reservists. “We need to share the burden. With the haredi population continuing to grow, the issue must be addressed now.”
At the same time, Perez said he has “sympathy for haredim,” noting that for decades, every Israeli government, both left- and right-wing, kept the status quo. Prior to Oct. 7, the IDF itself spent years reducing personnel and shortening service.
“It’s not so easy to turn around a 75-year inertia we’ve allowed,” he said.
Losice agrees that change won’t happen overnight.
The fact that in the decade prior to the Oct. 7 attack, the military began to rely more on technology and intelligence while assuming it needed fewer foot soldiers was a miscalculation, Losice said. “We need haredi soldiers now more than ever before.”
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