Ultra-Orthodox Jews who refuse to join the army could face financial penalties, Israel's Supreme Court has ruled
The Supreme Court of Israel ordered on Sunday, April 26, the authorities to financially sanction ultra-orthodox Jews who refuse mandatory enlistment in the armed forces.
PHOTO: Reuters
The court showed that “in the absence of concrete measures that indicate the will to act to enforce compliance with the obligation to incorporate (…) there is no other option than to order operational measures, which represent nothing more than the direct application of the law”, writes Agrpres.
The Israeli government should have obtained a vote in parliament on a law on the conscription of ultra-Orthodox Jews, who are largely exempt from military service.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is delaying a military service law to avoid losing the support of ultra-Orthodox allies, instead backing a bill that would allow them to avoid conscription.
While tens of thousands of Israelis are mobilized in the context of the conflicts in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, students of Talmudic schools are largely exempt from military service, and the refusal of the ultra-Orthodox to report for conscription is, in practice, not sanctioned.
The Supreme Court requested that they be removed from financial facilities such as those regarding local taxes and public transport or subsidies for nurseries.
Arie Dery, the leader of the largest ultra-Orthodox party, Shas, accused the court of “the serious damage (…) to the very foundations of the existence of the Jewish people in Israel”.
Ever since the creation of the Jewish state, in 1948, the ultra-orthodox are de facto exempt from military service, provided that they fully devote themselves to the study of Hebrew religious texts (Torah) in a religious school (yeshiva).
They currently represent about 14% of the Jewish population in Israel, about 66,000 of whom are of draft age.
In August 2025, several ultra-Orthodox Jews clashed with law enforcement in Jerusalem while protesting the conscription into the Israeli army and the arrest of religious school students accused of evading the conscription order.
At the time, many Haredi Jews began receiving orders to report to military commissariats, ending a decades-old exemption.
