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A looming crisis over drafting Haredi men into the Israeli army is jeopardizing the governing coalition and fracturing the nation.

Popular sentiment on the question has undergone a sea change in Israel after two years of war, and this is now perhaps the most divisive political issue facing Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Judicial Battle

Legislators are now debating a piece of legislation to end the deferment awarded to Haredi students engaged in Torah study, established when the modern Israel was declared in 1948.

This arrangement was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court almost 20 years ago. Stopgap solutions to maintain it were formally ended by the bench last year, forcing the government to commence conscription of the Haredi sector.

Some 24,000 call-up papers were delivered last year, but merely about 1,200 men from the community showed up, according to defense officials presented to lawmakers.

Strains Boil Over Into Violence

Friction is spilling onto the public squares, with elected officials now discussing a new conscription law to compel ultra-Orthodox men into army duty in the same way as other Jewish citizens.

Two representatives were confronted this month by hardline activists, who are enraged with the Knesset's deliberations of the bill.

And last week, a special Border Police unit had to extract army police who were targeted by a sizeable mob of Haredi men as they tried to arrest a suspected draft-evader.

Such incidents have led to the development of a new messaging system named "Dark Alert" to send out instant alerts through Haredi neighborhoods and summon activists to block enforcement from taking place.

"Israel is a Jewish nation," said an activist. "It's impossible to battle the Jewish faith in a nation founded on Jewish identity. It is a contradiction."

An Environment Apart

However the changes blowing through Israel have not yet breached the confines of the Kisse Rahamim yeshiva in Bnei Brak, an ultra-Orthodox city on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

Within the study hall, teenage boys study together to debate Judaism's religious laws, their brightly coloured writing books standing out against the lines of formal attire and traditional skullcaps.

"Come at one in the morning, and you will see half the guys are engaged in learning," the leader of the academy, Rabbi Tzemach Mazuz, said. "Via dedicated learning, we shield the soldiers wherever they are. This constitutes our service."

The community holds that constant study and Torah learning defend Israel's military, and are as essential to its security as its conventional forces. This conviction was accepted by previous governments in the earlier decades, he said, but he admitted that public attitudes are shifting.

Rising Public Pressure

This religious sector has grown substantially its percentage of Israel's population over the past seven decades, and now constitutes a sizable minority. What began as an deferment for several hundred Torah scholars evolved into, by the start of the 2023 war, a group of some 60,000 men exempt from the conscription.

Surveys indicate approval of drafting the Haredim is rising. A survey in July found that 85% of non-Haredi Jews - encompassing almost three-quarters in his own coalition allies - favored sanctions for those who declined a enlistment summons, with a solid consensus in supporting cutting state subsidies, the right to travel, or the franchise.

"I feel there are individuals who reside in this country without giving anything back," one off-duty soldier in Tel Aviv commented.

"It is my belief, no matter how devout, [it] should be an justification not to go and serve your state," added a Tel Aviv resident. "As a citizen by birth, I find it somewhat unreasonable that you want to exempt yourself just to study Torah all day."

Perspectives from Within Bnei Brak

Backing for broadening conscription is also coming from traditional Jews beyond the Haredi community, like Dorit Barak, who is a neighbor of the academy and notes observant but non-Haredi Jews who do enlist in the army while also studying Torah.

"I am frustrated that the Haredim don't enlist," she said. "This creates inequality. I too follow the Torah, but there's a teaching in Hebrew - 'The Book and the Sword' – it signifies the scripture and the weapons together. That is the path, until the arrival of peace."

Ms Barak runs a small memorial in the neighborhood to local soldiers, both religious and secular, who were fallen in war. Lines of photographs {