Three ultra-Orthodox Jewish men arrested Tuesday during a protest in the central city of Yehud at a construction site were transferred to military police after authorities discovered they had ignored IDF conscription orders.
The arrests triggered backlash from the Jerusalem Faction, a hardline ultra-Orthodox group that said it would begin nationwide protests Wednesday in response.
For weeks, demonstrators affiliated with the faction have rallied against a residential construction project by Aura Israel in Yehud, claiming the site desecrates ancient Jewish graves. Some protests have turned destructive, with demonstrators allegedly damaging construction equipment and disrupting work at the site.
During Tuesday’s protest, police detained three participants. A routine background check revealed they were draft dodgers who had failed to report for mandatory military service. Attorneys for the men said their clients were expected to be released from the station, but were instead transferred to military custody.
“This was an unexpected move,” said Shlomo Hadad and Itai Cohen, attorneys representing the men.
Haredi protest
(Video: Natali Cohen)
The Jerusalem Faction and its affiliated groups vowed to escalate protests. Organizers said those arrested were yeshiva students who followed the directives of late religious leader Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, who instructed his followers not to cooperate with the IDF draft process.
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“These are Torah scholars—Rabbi Elazar Kaufman, Rabbi David Menachem Mintzberg, and Rabbi Dov Aryeh Mordechai Rabinowitz—who have not reported to enlistment offices for years in accordance with our late leader’s instructions,” organizers said in a statement. “We now await direction from his successor, Rabbi Asher Auerbach, regarding mass protest actions.”
Ultra-Orthodox communities have long resisted military service, citing religious study as their sole obligation. Tensions over the issue have grown as the government moves to pass a new draft law aimed at formalizing exemptions for Haredi men.
Rabbi Dov Landau, a senior Lithuanian Haredi leader, issued a letter Tuesday instructing yeshiva heads to forbid students from reporting to enlistment offices “under any circumstances.” The letter was released as the Knesset prepared to replace Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chair Yuli Edelstein, a key figure opposing government concessions on the draft law.
In a message published in the ultra-Orthodox daily Yated Ne’eman, Landau criticized the government for failing to secure legal protections for full-time yeshiva students following a recent Supreme Court ruling that invalidated blanket exemptions.
The letter also prohibited yeshiva students from leaving Israel between the Tisha B'Av fast and the start of the Jewish month of Elul without explicit permission from their rabbis.
“At the directive of our sages, we caution against those who attempt to resolve their status independently through unofficial channels or self-proclaimed experts,” the letter read. “All decisions must be made in consultation with rabbinic authority.”