Anybody reading the secular or the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) press in recent months knows that the Religious Zionist sector is under attack from both opposing sides of the political spectrum. And anybody reading the religious and right-wing press in recent months knows that the Religious Zionist sector is also tearing itself apart.
The issue at hand is the draft exemption law for the haredi world, which is being debated in the Knesset.
Obviously, the Religious Zionist public and political and rabbinic figures associated with it are broadly supportive of efforts to draw haredi men into national and military service. The debate is over how demanding to be in the intent to draft haredi men, how fierce a draft law – or how weak a draft exemption law – to pass, and whether to risk the current and possibly future nationalist-haredi coalition governments over this matter.
I am strongly in favor of forcing real societal change through tough sanctions on the haredi world, which refuses to participate in the privilege of national security service – although I understand those who fear the shattering of the political Right if haredi leaders are pushed harder.
What I cannot tolerate is the demonizing of the Religious Zionist public in this debate – especially the savaging of brave Religious Zionist women, wives, and mothers of courageous soldiers – who have led campaigns for the passage of an effective and enforceable haredi draft law.
Devoted military service
No sector in Israeli society has “carried the burden” of the past two years of war with more devoted military service, and alas with more casualties, than the Religious Zionists.
This assessment was borne out in a first-of-its-kind detailed academic study published last month. Writing in The Israeli Journal of Society, Military, and National Security (published by the Maarachot think-tank of the Defense Ministry and The Association of Civil-Military Studies in Israel), Dr. Roe Naon and Prof. Uzi Ben-Shalom assert that the Religious Zionist sector suffered four times the losses of any other in Israel.
The authors studied the conscript and reserve units serving in the Israel-Hamas War (Swords of Iron) as well as the rolls of wounded and fallen soldiers.
They found that 257 fallen soldiers, equaling 34 percent of all soldiers killed in the war, were “religious” Israelis; way beyond the less-than-10% of the overall public that identifies as “dati.” Again, the losses among the religious soldiers are four times larger than the size of this community within the broader Israeli public, and 2.5 times larger than the size of this community in relation to men of draft age.
Among reserve soldiers, religious men account for a whopping 45% of the casualties in this war. They are 29% of the casualties among soldiers in the standing army, and 27% of those in the professional army ranks.
Among junior officers in the military, religious soldiers account for 43% of the fallen. Among non-commissioned officers (NCOs), religious soldiers are 41% of the fallen. Among infantry-based NCOs, religious soldiers make up 30% of the fallen.
In the units most implicated in frontline, heavy combat, namely in the engineering, armored, and infantry corps, over one-third of the fallen are religious soldiers.
Additionally, a preponderance of these fallen religious soldiers hail from Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and peripheral towns in Israel – where many religious Jews live – as well as from the lower socioeconomic strata of Israeli society.
In summary, the authors of the study note the high degree of ideological, communal, familial, and national commitment of the Religious Zionist sector to the military defense of Israel, and the great emphasis on “national unity” and the “privilege” of serving the country that marks this sector.
All of this accounts for the disproportionate share of fallen and wounded soldiers in this sector of Israeli society.
What Naon and Ben-Shalom have not yet studied are the large families that these religious soldiers often have – especially reservists – and the deep, disrupting, and traumatizing impact that long military service, wounding, and death have had on very many religious families.
All the more ugly
This reality, both heroic and bone-chilling, makes the current attacks on Religious Zionists all the more ugly.
It is bad enough that some radical secular leftists accuse Religious Zionists of uber-nationalism (calling them “messianic” or “bloodthirsty”), while the defeatist policies of the Left ever since Oslo have led Israel to disaster.
And it is bad enough that haredi leaders accuse Religious Zionists of “abandoning Torah values,” while haredi indifference to the suffering and national burden of all other Israelis is the very opposite of Torah values.
But it is outrageous and infuriating to witness the savage attacks on brave women like Noa Mevorah and Shvut Raanan of Shutafim LaSheirut (Partners in Service: Religious Women in Favor of IDF Service).
They are being called “traitors” and “useful idiots of the Left” for their outspoken, principled advocacy of strong haredi draft legislation.
These are women whose husbands and sons have collectively served thousands of days of tough military duty, and they have every right to demand a sea change in the “contract” between the serving Israeli public and the mostly non-serving haredi public.
They are now facing an avalanche of delegitimizing ads and digital posts across a broad swath of right-wing and religious newspapers (such as B’Sheva), magazines circulated in synagogues (like Olam Katan and dozens of other haredi publications), and broadcast platforms, notably Channel 14.
The attacks have broadened to include assaults on all religious women who do “only” national service and on religious men who do “only” hesder service (program for religious men, alternating yeshiva study with active IDF service and long and intensive years of frontline reserve duty).
Netanyahu’s coalition
Alas, the unifying theme behind these attacks appears to be slavish devotion to the principle of “Thou shalt not harm Netanyahu’s coalition,” while downplaying the overarching moral demand for equalizing military service responsibilities at the historic inflexion point now before Israeli society.
Unfortunately, a “hardal” coalition of 40 rabbis (composed of community rabbis and yeshiva deans within Religious Zionism who tend toward haredi ideology and religious practice) this week joined the fracas against Shutafim LaSheirut and in support of Religious Zionist Party leader Betzalel Smotrich – who is leaning toward adoption of the current draft evasion law concocted by Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chair Boaz Bismuth.
They bury the real ideological and political questions of the day under a blanket of smarmy niceties about “brotherly love” for the haredi public. They glibly term opposition to draft-evasion legislation as a “trap” caused by “troublemakers” meant to bring down the current right-wing government.
They furthermore make the nonsensical assertion that the proposed legislation will indeed help draft many haredi soldiers – “three times as many haredi soldiers.” (Three times what? The current number of near-zero.)
And, in a further insult to our intelligence, these narrow-minded rabbis aver that the Bismuth bill will “ease the burden on reservists,” including, supposedly, the many Religious Zionist reservists whose communities they helm – although even the most ardent advocates of the bill do not make this ridiculous claim.
It will take decades of effective haredi draft until a mass of combat soldiers is sufficiently absorbed and trained enough to lead to a real easing of the reservist burden.
As a deeply religious Zionist myself, even an unabashed “messianist,” I too seek brotherly love and unity but not at the expense of ideological distortions, false narratives, and malicious defamation.
The writer is managing senior fellow at the Jerusalem-based Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy. The views expressed here are his own. His diplomatic, defense, political, and Jewish world columns over the past 30 years are at davidmweinberg.com.