The Haredim constitute 13.3% of the total population of Israel (French)

The Bank of Israel (the central bank) said that recruiting religious Jews (Haredim) into the army will contribute to alleviating the damage to the economy.

Thus, the Bank of Israel enters the midst of a severe political crisis in Israel due to the conscription law. While the religious parties oppose compromising the principle of exempting religious people (Haredim) from military service, ministers, including War Council member Benny Gantz, Defense Minister Yoav Galant, and opposition leader Yair Lapid, demand an end to this. Exemption.

Last Monday, the Commissioner of Budgets at the Ministry of Finance, Yogev Gardos, warned that the conscription law in its current form would have dire economic consequences.

In a paper sent to Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Gardos stated that exempting the Haredim from conscription is responsible for harming the economy, calling for the abolition of the Haredim’s exemption from military service.

Gardos explained that if the Haredim engage in military service, it will raise the level of service in the army significantly, whether in terms of the length of service in the regular army or in the reserve forces, and it will reduce the economic burdens, and they will be distributed to a larger number of Israelis.

“With regard to the economy, making the non-recruitment of Haredim conditional on their non-participation in the labor market has led to employment patterns that cause long-term damage to the economy as a whole,” Gardos added.

Israel suffered many human losses as a result of its aggression against Gaza (French)

High costs

The renewed discussion of the conscription law comes at a time when the Israeli army has been waging a war on the Gaza Strip for about 6 months, prompting it to seek to significantly increase the number of its personnel and rebuild its forces for the coming years.

In a paper drafted in the budgets department, the cost that the state budget will bear to expand compulsory and reserve service to the required degree over the next decade will amount to 41 billion shekels ($11.11 billion).

The paper explained that if Haredim were conscripted similarly to compulsory conscription among other populations, it would be possible to shorten the period of compulsory service by 7 months for everyone.

He adds that the introduction of the Haredim into the army will make it possible to reduce the number of reserve duty days for all reservists to about 86% of the current numbers.

Haredi recruitment would reduce economic costs, since the alternative is to extend the period of reserve service.

It was confirmed that meeting defense needs by having soldiers perform regular compulsory service while reducing reserve service is of great economic importance, estimated at about 1.7 billion shekels ($460 million) annually, because this alternative will significantly reduce the cost of military service on the economy, according to Gardos.

Current recruitment status for Haredim

  • The law currently allows anyone who has attended independent Orthodox religious education (Haredi) for a period of no less than 4 years to be exempt from compulsory military service upon reaching the age of 18 years.

  • The decision to exempt “Haredi” youth from compulsory conscription if they enroll in religious schools dates back to a settlement reached during the era of Israel’s founder, David Ben-Gurion, in 1948, and the exemptions were increasingly expanded, thanks to the 1977 decision.

  • The Haredim refuse conscription into the army, considering Israel a secular state.

  • The number of Haredim in 2022 reached about one million and 280 thousand people, compared to 750 thousand in 2009, and they now constitute 13.3% of the total population of Israel.

Source: Al Jazeera + Israeli press