Strictly religious people can avoid military service in Israel. Now thousands of Israelis demonstrated against the exemption, which expires at the end of March.
In Israel, men have to do military service for almost three years, women for two years. In 1948, the country's founder, David Ben-Gurion, agreed to exempt Jewish religious students from military service. At that time, only a few hundred men were exempt. Today, the strictly religious make up around 13 percent of Israel's almost ten million inhabitants.