Over IDF chief’s protest: Knesset approves law elevating Torah study as state’s ‘foundational value’

The Israeli Knesset on Monday approved the highly controversial law elevating Torah study as a “foundational value” of the state, which critics argue is meant to make the arrest of ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers harder in the future.

The law passed shortly after the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee advanced the so-called “Arrest Bill,” which would grant temporary immunity to ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers.

The government has sought to advance a raft of highly controversial bills, including several sponsored by the Haredi parties, ahead of the Knesset's dissolution at the end of this week.

On Monday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir harshly criticized the Arrest Bill as “clearly and unequivocally inconsistent with the IDF’s needs” while reiterating the military’s desperate need for more soldiers.

אושר סופית: נקבע כי לימוד התורה הוא ערך יסוד במורשת העם היהודי ובמדינת ישראל.

לחוק במאגר החקיקה הלאומי: https://t.co/XuVlFNJEUe pic.twitter.com/GamWJADBXU

— הכנסת - The Knesset (@KnessetIL) July 13, 2026

“It is inconceivable that the military system under my command, which demands unprecedented sacrifice from its personnel, would be party to granting mass exemptions from prosecution,” Zamir wrote in a letter addressing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and Knesset Defense Committee chair Boaz Bismuth.

An estimated 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men are eligible for military service but are not enlisted, while the IDF has been pleading for more soldiers as the reserve service system is close to “collapsing,” as some officers have described. IDF officials have repeatedly said that the military needs 12,000 new recruits, including 8,000 combat soldiers.

Zamir emphasized that the Arrest Bill not only is “not expected to bring additional personnel to military service in the short term, but rather the opposite — it will provide an incentive to not report for military service, as, due to it, there will be an exemption from prosecution and criminal proceedings.”

In one move intended to assuage the military’s concern, the Defense Committee also advanced the bill extending mandatory military service to 32 months. During the committee discussion, Brig.-Gen. Shay Tayeb, Head of the Personnel Support Directorate, stressed that “The standing army has reached the limit of its capability, and so has the reserve force.”

Meanwhile, Haredi leaders praised the Torah Study law, though the watered-down version that was passed is not expected to have significant legal consequences, and is widely seen as a symbolic move to please the Haredi parties’ voters. The original bill would have outright equated Torah study to military service.

United Torah Judaism lawmaker Moshe Gafni, who co-sponsored the law, said it would “serve as the state’s moral compass and express the recognition that Torah study is not merely the heritage of the past, but the foundation upon which rests the present and future of the Jewish people on their land.”

“This is a victory for the world of Torah and a clear answer to the ousted attorney general and everyone who sought to persecute and humiliate yeshiva students,” celebrated Shas party leader Aryeh Deri, “You will not succeed in breaking the Jewish spirit. The holy Torah will prevail!”

The bill was strongly criticized by the opposition parties, which issued calls to the coalition members to oppose it ahead of the vote. In the end, only Yuli Edelstein and Dan Illouz, who have already announced they would leave the Likud over their opposition to support for ostensible draft evasion, voted against.

The “Reservists’ Wives Forum” said in a statement that the law will “deepen the inequality even further.”

Gilad Rand, one of the leaders of the “National Religious Reservists Forum,” warned that “We are collapsing under the burden. I am going to pass 400 days of reserve duty. I am already in my second July-August rotation, this time during the children's vacation as well.”

In addition, the Movement for Quality Government (MQG) announced it had already issued a petition to the High Court of Justice to annul the Torah Study law, which received the status of a quasi-constitutional Basic Law.

“Behind the innocent name lies an attempt to write exemption from military service into Israel’s Basic Laws — to circumvent High Court rulings precisely as enforcement has begun to take effect and sanctions are increasing enlistment,” they said.

“A Basic Law born of a political deal, enacted in haste and without genuine public debate, and seeking to institutionalize permanent discrimination, cannot stand.”