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An impending crisis over drafting Haredi men into the military is jeopardizing Israel's government and fracturing the country.

The public mood on the matter has changed profoundly in Israel after two years of hostilities, and this is now possibly the most divisive political challenge facing Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Constitutional Struggle

Lawmakers are currently considering a proposal to terminate the special status granted to yeshiva scholars enrolled in full-time religious study, instituted when the State of Israel was founded in 1948.

That exemption was struck down by the Supreme Court in the early 2000s. Interim measures to continue it were officially terminated by the bench last year, pressuring the administration to commence conscription of the ultra-Orthodox population.

Approximately 24,000 call-up papers were sent out last year, but just approximately 1,200 ultra-Orthodox - or Haredi - draftees showed up, according to defense officials given to lawmakers.

Strains Boil Over Onto the Streets

Strains are boiling over onto the city centers, with parliamentarians now deliberating a new draft bill to require ultra-Orthodox men into army duty together with other secular Israelis.

A pair of ultra-Orthodox lawmakers were harassed this month by radical elements, who are enraged with the legislative debate of the bill.

And last week, a elite police squad had to rescue enforcement personnel who were targeted by a large crowd of Haredi men as they attempted to detain a man avoiding service.

These enforcement actions have sparked the creation of a new messaging system dubbed "Dark Alert" to spread word quickly through Haredi neighborhoods and mobilize demonstrators to stop detentions from taking place.

"Israel is a Jewish nation," said an activist. "It's impossible to battle the Jewish faith in a nation founded on Jewish identity. It doesn't work."

A Realm Set Aside

But the changes blowing through Israel have failed to penetrate the walls of the Kisse Rahamim yeshiva in an ultra-Orthodox city, an Haredi enclave on the edge of Tel Aviv.

Inside the classroom, young students learn in partnerships to debate Jewish law, their distinctive school notebooks popping against the lines of white shirts and head coverings.

"Come at one in the morning, and you will see half the guys are pursuing religious study," the leader of the academy, Rabbi Tzemach Mazuz, noted. "Through religious study, we protect the troops on the front lines. This is our army."

The community holds that continuous prayer and religious study defend Israel's armed forces, and are as vital to its security as its advanced weaponry. This tenet was accepted by the nation's leaders in the earlier decades, Rabbi Mazuz said, but he conceded that public attitudes are shifting.

Rising Popular Demand

The ultra-Orthodox population has more than doubled its proportion of the country's people over the past seven decades, and now constitutes 14%. An exemption that started as an exception for a small number of religious students turned into, by the beginning of the Gaza war, a cohort of tens of thousands of men left out of the conscription.

Polling data suggest approval of ultra-Orthodox conscription is increasing. A survey in July revealed that an overwhelming percentage of secular and traditional Jews - including a significant majority in his own coalition allies - supported sanctions for those who declined a enlistment summons, with a firm majority in supporting withdrawing benefits, travel documents, or the electoral participation.

"It makes me feel there are people who live in this country without contributing," one serviceman in Tel Aviv commented.

"It is my belief, regardless of piety, [it] should be an excuse not to perform service your nation," said a young woman. "As a citizen by birth, I find it quite ridiculous that you want to opt out just to study Torah all day."

Perspectives from Within Bnei Brak

Backing for ending the exemption is also coming from traditional Jews beyond the Haredi community, like a Bnei Brak inhabitant, who is a neighbor of the yeshiva and points to non-Haredi religious Jews who do perform national service while also engaging in religious study.

"I am frustrated that the Haredim don't enlist," she said. "This creates inequality. I too follow the Torah, but there's a saying in Jewish tradition - 'The Book and the Sword' – it signifies the scripture and the weapons together. That is the path, until the days of peace."

The resident maintains a small memorial in her city to soldiers from the area, both religious and secular, who were lost in conflict. Lines of images {