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A looming crisis over drafting Haredi men into the military is threatening to undermine the governing coalition and dividing the country.

Public opinion on the question has changed profoundly in Israel after two years of hostilities, and this is now perhaps the most volatile political challenge facing Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Judicial Battle

Lawmakers are reviewing a draft bill to abolish the special status awarded to Haredi students dedicated to full-time religious study, established when the State of Israel was declared in 1948.

This arrangement was struck down by the nation's top court almost 20 years ago. Temporary arrangements to maintain it were formally ended by the judiciary last year, pressuring the cabinet to begin drafting the Haredi sector.

Approximately 24,000 call-up papers were delivered last year, but only around 1,200 ultra-Orthodox - or Haredi - draftees enlisted, according to defense officials given to lawmakers.

Tensions Boil Over Into Violence

Strains are boiling over onto the city centers, with lawmakers now debating a new draft bill to force ultra-Orthodox men into national service in the same way as other Israeli Jews.

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

And last week, a elite police squad had to rescue enforcement personnel who were targeted by a sizeable mob of Haredi men as they sought to apprehend a alleged conscription dodger.

These enforcement actions have led to the development of a new alert system called "Emergency Alert" to rapidly disseminate information through the religious sector and call out activists to stop detentions from occurring.

"This is a Jewish state," stated an activist. "You can't fight against the Jewish faith in a Jewish country. It doesn't work."

An Environment Apart

But the transformations sweeping across Israel have not yet breached the confines of the religious seminary in an ultra-Orthodox city, an Haredi enclave on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

Within the study hall, teenage boys learn in partnerships to debate Jewish law, their distinctive writing books contrasting with the rows of white shirts and traditional skullcaps.

"Come at one in the morning, and you will see half the guys are engaged in learning," the dean of the seminary, a senior rabbi, said. "Via dedicated learning, we protect the military personnel on the front lines. This constitutes our service."

Haredi Jews maintain that continuous prayer and spiritual pursuit protect Israel's armed forces, and are as essential to its security as its advanced weaponry. This tenet was acknowledged by Israel's politicians in the past, the rabbi said, but he conceded that public attitudes are shifting.

Increasing Popular Demand

This religious sector has grown substantially its percentage of the country's people over the past seven decades, and now constitutes 14%. What began as an deferment for several hundred Torah scholars turned into, by the onset of the Gaza war, a group of approximately 60,000 men exempt from the draft.

Surveys suggest approval of ending the exemption is growing. A poll in July found that 85% of secular and traditional Jews - even almost three-quarters in Netanyahu's own right-wing Likud party - supported penalties for those who declined a enlistment summons, with a solid consensus in supporting cutting state subsidies, passports, or the franchise.

"It makes me feel there are citizens who are part of this nation without serving," one off-duty soldier in Tel Aviv commented.

"It is my belief, regardless of piety, [it] should be an reason not to go and serve your country," said a young woman. "As a citizen by birth, I find it quite ridiculous that you want to opt out just to engage in religious study all day."

Perspectives from Inside the Community

Advocacy of broadening conscription is also expressed by observant Jews beyond the Haredi community, like a Bnei Brak inhabitant, who is a neighbor of the yeshiva and points to observant but non-Haredi Jews who do enlist in the army while also maintaining their faith.

"I am frustrated that the Haredim don't enlist," she said. "This creates inequality. I also believe in the Torah, but there's a proverb in Hebrew - 'Safra and Saifa' – it means the Torah and the guns together. That's the way forward, until the arrival of peace."

The resident manages a modest remembrance site in Bnei Brak to fallen servicemen, both religious and secular, who were fallen in war. Lines of images {