Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is expected to approve the appointment of United Torah Judaism lawmaker Israel Eichler as a deputy minister to help advance a bill regulating the military draft of ultra-Orthodox men, Kan News reported on Thursday.
Appointing Eichler—a member of Agudat Yisrael, the Chassidic faction of the Ashkenazi Haredi party—as a deputy communications minister will allow for the return to Knesset of Yitzhak Pindrus, who represents UTJ’s Lithuanian wing and is expected to support the draft bill.
Israel’s so-called “Norwegian Law” allows a lawmaker appointed as a minister or deputy minister to resign from the Knesset, triggering the next candidate on the party’s candidates list to take the vacant seat.
The reshuffle has the potential to give Netanyahu’s coalition 68 votes in the 120-seat parliament, enough to advance the legislation, by breaking up Agudat Yisrael and returning Haredi “moderates” to the government, according to a report by Israel’s Channel 12 News outlet.
The issue of drafting or exempting Haredi men from mandatory military service has proven one of the most disruptive issues for Netanyahu’s coalition of right-wing and religious partners.
The bill currently making its way through the Knesset sets annual enlistment targets for ultra-Orthodox men that increase over time and would count national service alongside military service, while leaving most full-time yeshivah students eligible for continued service exemptions.
Netanyahu told the Knesset on Jan. 5, “We are advancing a historic plan that will lead to the conscription of 23,000 Haredim over the next three-and-a-half years,” hailing the proposed legislation as a “genuine revolution.”
“Our bill establishes personal and institutional sanctions; I believe that they will not be necessary because the ultra-Orthodox population will meet the draft targets that we have set,” the prime minister declared.
For more than 70 years, a policy dating back to the nascent days of the Jewish state has allowed ultra-Orthodox yeshivah students to postpone their compulsory military service until they reach the age of exemption.
Criminal proceedings
Israel’s Supreme Court ruled last year that following the expiry of an exemption law in 2023, the military must begin drafting Haredi men, and the IDF this year began initiating criminal proceedings against ultra-Orthodox draft candidates who fail to report for enlistment.
Netanyahu’s Haredi partners, UTJ and Shas, last year left the coalition over the issue, leaving the premier without a clear majority. However, the two parties have refrained from bringing down the government.
Shas threatened last week to oppose the 2026 state budget—a move that would lead to the collapse of the government and an early national election—if the Knesset fails to pass the bill regulating the ultra-Orthodox draft by March 31.
“From the perspective of the ultra-Orthodox public, the draft law is as far-reaching as one could possibly imagine,” Shas spokesperson Asher Medina told a Haredi radio station, adding, “We will support the law, because it is the only thing that will save the world of Torah.”
In a separate interview with Kol Barama on Dec. 4, Shas Party MK Michael Malkieli insisted that his faction was fully coordinated with United Torah Judaism regarding the issue of the conscription bill.
Israel’s ultra-Orthodox generally consider national service a distraction from Torah study and a threat to their way of life. However, Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and the ensuing war have heightened demands by the public that Haredim contribute to the Jewish nation’s defense.
While most Israelis agree that Haredim should play a more prominent role in the defense of the Jewish state, some politicians have questioned the behavior and timing of the Supreme Court and the attorney general.
The number of Haredi men studying in yeshivot who are deemed eligible for IDF service is estimated at between 63,000 and 66,000. Since the start of the war, more than a thousand Haredi men have voluntarily enlisted, and a similar number have volunteered for civilian national service.
