On Thursday, Jerusalem witnessed one of the largest protests in years as thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men rallied to oppose military conscription, bringing parts of the city to a standstill and highlighting a deep internal crisis facing Israel amid its ongoing conflict in Gaza.
The protesters, who traveled from all over Israel, clogged main roads in West Jerusalem in a event dubbed the "march of the million". Men dressed in traditional black attire set fire to pieces of tarpaulin and carried placards with messages such as "Better to go to prison than to the army" and "The people are with the Torah". The demonstration, which required some 2,000 police officers to manage, was largely peaceful but there was one death after a teenager fell from a building at the protest site. One protester, Shmuel Orbach, articulated the community's stance, noting that those who refuse service are taken to military prison, but asserted, "You cannot fight against Judaism in a Jewish country".
The core of the conflict stems from a longstanding exemption dating back to Israel's founding in 1948. Initially granted because the ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, community was very small, it allowed men devoted full-time to religious text study to avoid the mandatory military service that applies to most other Jewish Israelis. This arrangement has come under immense pressure since the war in Gaza began in October 2023, as the Israeli military struggles to fill its ranks and the public death toll rises. In June 2024, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that the state must draft ultra-Orthodox men, declaring that the legal grounds for their blanket exemption had expired. This ruling gave legal force to the mounting public resentment over the issue.
The conscription issue poses a direct threat to the stability of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition government. The ultra-Orthodox parties are essential partners for Netanyahu, but the issue has already caused severe strain. The United Torah Judaism party has quit both the government and the coalition over the matter. While the Shas party, which holds 11 critical seats in the 120-member Knesset, has not formally left, it has warned it will withdraw its support unless military service exemptions are cemented into law. Such a move could collapse Netanyahu's fragile coalition, which now holds a precarious 60 seats.
The protest occurs against a backdrop of intense resentment from the broader Israeli public. With the Israeli military engaged in its longest war and having suffered its highest casualty numbers in decades. A survey from the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) found that a significant majority of the Jewish public (71%) believes that legislating exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox would harm motivation to serve in crucial combat roles. Many soldiers and reservists, some of whom have over 16 months since the Gaza genocide began, feel a sense of betrayal, questioning why they endure repeated and dangerous call-ups while a large segment of the population is exempt. The Haredi community, now 14% of Israel's Jewish population with roughly 66,000 men of military age, is the fastest-growing segment of society, making the manpower crisis a long-term strategic concern for the military.