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A gathering crisis over drafting Haredi men into the Israeli army is threatening to undermine the governing coalition and splitting the nation.

The public mood on the question has shifted dramatically in Israel in the wake of two years of war, and this is now perhaps the most explosive political challenge facing the Prime Minister.

The Legal Battle

Lawmakers are currently considering a draft bill to abolish the exemption awarded to yeshiva scholars dedicated to Torah study, instituted when the State of Israel was declared in 1948.

That exemption was ruled illegal by the Supreme Court in the early 2000s. Temporary arrangements to maintain it were formally ended by the bench last year, pressuring the government to commence conscription of the ultra-Orthodox population.

Some 24,000 draft notices were issued last year, but merely about 1,200 men from the community enlisted, according to military testimony given to lawmakers.

Strains Spill Onto the Streets

Tensions are erupting onto the city centers, with elected officials now deliberating a new draft bill to compel yeshiva students into military service in the same way as other secular Israelis.

Two representatives were harassed this month by some extreme ultra-Orthodox protesters, who are incensed with the Knesset's deliberations of the proposed law.

In a recent incident, a special Border Police unit had to assist Military Police officers who were surrounded by a big group of Haredi men as they tried to arrest a suspected draft-evader.

Such incidents have led to the development of a new communication network dubbed "Dark Alert" to spread word quickly through the religious sector and call out protesters to stop detentions from occurring.

"Israel is a Jewish nation," remarked an activist. "It's impossible to battle the Jewish faith in a Jewish country. That is untenable."

An Environment Set Aside

But the shifts affecting Israel have failed to penetrate the environment of the Torah academy in an ultra-Orthodox city, an Haredi enclave on the edge of Tel Aviv.

Inside the classroom, young students sit in pairs to debate Jewish law, their vividly colored school notebooks contrasting with the lines of formal attire and head coverings.

"Come at one in the morning, and you will see a significant portion are pursuing religious study," the leader of the seminary, Rabbi Tzemach Mazuz, noted. "By studying Torah, we protect the troops on the front lines. This is our army."

Haredi Jews maintain that continuous prayer and religious study defend Israel's military, and are as essential to its military success as its tanks and air force. This conviction was endorsed by Israel's politicians in the earlier decades, he said, but he acknowledged that Israel was changing.

Growing Popular Demand

This religious sector has grown substantially its proportion of the nation's citizens over the past seven decades, and now accounts for around one in seven. An exemption that started as an deferment for a few hundred yeshiva attendees turned into, by the start of the Gaza war, a cohort of approximately 60,000 men exempt from the national service.

Opinion polls suggest support for ending the exemption is growing. A survey in July revealed that an overwhelming percentage of the broader Jewish public - encompassing a significant majority in the Prime Minister's political base - favored sanctions for those who declined a enlistment summons, with a solid consensus in favor of withdrawing benefits, passports, or the electoral participation.

"It makes me feel there are individuals who reside in this nation without giving anything back," one serviceman in Tel Aviv commented.

"I don't think, regardless of piety, [it] should be an reason not to perform service your country," added a Tel Aviv resident. "If you're born here, I find it quite ridiculous that you want to opt out just to study Torah all day."

Voices from Within a Religious City

Backing for extending the draft is also found among religious Jews outside the Haredi community, like one local resident, who is a neighbor of the yeshiva and highlights religious Zionists who do enlist in the army while also studying Torah.

"I am frustrated that this community don't enlist," she said. "It's unfair. I also believe in the Torah, but there's a proverb in Hebrew - 'Safra and Saifa' – it represents the Torah and the guns together. This is the correct approach, until the messianic era."

Ms Barak maintains a modest remembrance site in the neighborhood to fallen servicemen, both from all backgrounds, who were fallen in war. Rows of images {