Ultra-Orthodox rabbi says Haredi students will flee Israel if threatened with arrests for IDF draft dodging

The spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox political party Shas, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, said on Tuesday that yeshiva students should leave the country if the government begins arresting students who refuse to enlist after receiving draft orders.

"If they force us to go to the army… we have no right to exist here, we will all go abroad, we will not stay here,” Rabbi Yosef said in a recorded message to his students. “If we cannot study in the Land of Israel... there is no right to exist to stay if we do not have Torah, the Torah is above everything, our Torah protects the soldiers.”

Ultra-Orthodox Jews will often use the word Torah – Hebrew for “instruction” – to refer to their broader system of religious teachings, rather than exclusively to the first five books of the Bible, which are also called Torah.

Rabbi Yosef even claimed that Israel’s success in intercepting rockets and missiles is due to the studies of the yeshiva students.

“They launched 35,000 missiles at us, how many missiles, and thank God, most of them are intercepted, 'Iron Dome' or 'Arrow,' how do they succeed?” he asked. “Through your Torah.”

He went on to say that if secular politicians understood this, they would increase the funding to the yeshivas.

Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef is the son of the former Shas spiritual leader, Ovadia Yosef.

Ultra-Orthodox political leaders, especially from the United Torah Judaism party, have threatened to bring down the government if arrests are issued against ultra-Orthodox men who fail to enlist after receiving their draft orders.

This is not the first time that Rabbi Yosef has spoken about a Haredi departure from Israel over the issue of enlistment.

In March 2024, when he was still serving as the Sephardic chief rabbi, Rabbi Yosef expressed a similar opinion.

“No matter what, if we are forced to enlist in the army, we will all go abroad, buy tickets and go there,” he said during his remarks to students. “There is no such thing (referring to Haredi conscription), the yeshiva holds the state up.”

At that time, he also claimed that without the yeshiva students, ”there would be no success for the army.”

“The reason they succeed in the army is thanks to the Bnei Torah [yeshiva students, literally sons of instruction], the soldiers succeed thanks to the Bnei Torah.”

Rabbi Yosef and other ultra-Orthodox leaders – such as Rabbi Moshe Maya, a senior member of Shas’ Council of Torah Sages, and Rabbi Dov Lando, chairman of United Torah Judaism’s Council of Torah Sages – have instructed students who receive draft notices to destroy them and refuse to comply, even if they are not enrolled in a yeshiva.

Last summer, the High Court of Justice ruled that the exemptions given to ultra-Orthodox students had no legal basis and ordered the government to begin drafting them.

According to IDF figures, 19,000 draft orders were distributed to Haredi men, but only 319 have enlisted.

Last week, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara held a hearing on the matter of ultra-Orthodox enlistment, where military officials informed her that there is a clear need for additional soldiers, and that enforcement of draft orders needs to be carried out across all sectors of society.

During the hearing, Baharav-Miara said, “There is an unacceptable gap between the increased burden on those who serve and the issuance of conscription orders – and the ultra-Orthodox enlistment figures. A gap that does not pass legally and violates the principle of equality.”

The issue of the Haredi draft has already forced the coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to remove all laws from the voting agenda until a compromise is reached, or face a possible vote of no-confidence, forcing early elections.

Some of Netanyahu’s coalition partners have called for the police to begin arresting Haredi draft dodgers. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, head of the Religious Zionism party, called on the authorities to arrest Haredi men protesting the draft notices and “bring them to justice.” 

Last Thursday, Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein, a Knesset member in Netanyahu’s Likud party, said that his committee will begin drafting a new enlistment law that will be ready within a few weeks.