Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 64-seat coalition in the Knesset consists of three pillars: Likud, Religious Zionism, and the ultra-Orthodox parties. Relations between them have never been as fragile as they are now, largely due to the Haredi draft crisis. Sources close to the Shas leadership told Shomrim that this crisis has left Israel’s ultra-Orthodox population feeling as though the whole world is against them. Right-wing voters, particularly those from the national-religious camp, who have borne a disproportionately high cost in the war against Hamas in Gaza, are demanding that yeshiva students also share the burden of protecting the country. As Shomrim reported extensively last month, these voters are no longer willing to turn a blind eye to those who claim that Torah study is their contribution to the state, as they did before October 7.

It is true that the coalition maintained a unified front when it came time to vote on applying the Law of Continuity, which allows the Knesset to advance a bill that has been passed in a first reading even though its passage was halted because parliament was dissolved, to the much watered-down version of the ultra-Orthodox draft legislation, with the exception of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who voted against it. However, the draft legislation is likely to undergo changes when it reaches the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, which is chaired by MK Yuli Edelstein, who promised that “the law will not be passed without broad agreement … which will lead to a more just future.” Likewise, statements by Economy Minister Nir Barkat and other Likud Knesset members who do not support the bill, according to which they would vote against it if there were not significant changes by the time it comes before them for the second and third reading, do not bode well for the ultra-Orthodox.

Time is also against them. Nine High Court justices unanimously ruled that, in the absence of a law stating otherwise, yeshiva students must be drafted into the IDF and that the state must halt financial support for yeshivas and kollels (an institute for full-time, advanced study of the Talmud and rabbinic literature) whose students do not join up. The court did not specify numbers but a legal opinion issued by the attorney general stated that the IDF can absorb 3,000 yeshiva students during this year’s recruitment process, in addition to those who were already scheduled to join (most of whom are young men who left their yeshivas). In the coming years, once the IDF is able to absorb larger numbers, the quota will rise significantly.

In their official responses, none of the ultra-Orthodox politicians threatened to bring down the government. They understand that there is no better coalition waiting around the corner and that they are better off trying to bring their influence to bear from within. That is certainly true for Shas, which, according to the coalition agreements signed in 2022, is due to take over the Finance Ministry. And still, there is a growing realization that the alliance between the right and the ultra-Orthodox, which has survived almost all the Israeli governments since 2009, is unable to achieve, in the framework of the current government, a blanket exemption from IDF service – something that one senior Haredi politician described as “the ABC of the Haredi reality, of the community’s needs. There is nothing more important.”

“For the first time, Shas chairman Aryeh Dery understands that the connection with the right can also be a burden,” says one individual who has followed Shas for many years. “He knows that nobody will make the kind of deals with them that the right has made, but he also recognizes that he has lost his bargaining power. The ultra-Orthodox are no longer the political kingmakers, able to join a leftist or rights coalition. For the past 15 years, they have been identified exclusively with the right. And, to borrow an analogy from the American elections, instead of remaining neutral, they put all their eggs in the Republic basket – and he’s not delivering the goods.”

They can always repair the damage to relations with the Democratic candidate, especially given that the center-left is desperate to return to power.

“Their voters will not allow the ultra-Orthodox parties to compromise on the issue of IDF service. The secular and national-religious camps are sick of being suckers. This is a fateful test of the relationship between the ultra-Orthodox and the bloc it has been part of for the past 15 years. The ultra-Orthodox are holding their heads in their hands and are ruing the day they ever entered into an alliance with Netanyahu. Once we got along with everyone, they are telling themselves; now we’re inextricably linked to a leader who has not prepared a successor and we are being attacked head on.”

Why does the lack of a successor bother them?

“They understand that if Netanyahu is no longer Likud chair after the next election, that bloc will be dead and buried because they will be persona non grata even within the right-wing parties.”

Asked about the possibility that a new right-wing party could allow the sides to turn over a new leaf, one key activist from Shas’ youth branch told Shomrim that, “as far as we are concerned, the criteria for creating a new bloc is not a right-bloc. We are not looking for new wackos. We’re looking for a party with conservative values. That is what the battle between the blocs in Israel is all about. In any case, none of the parties are seriously talking about a Palestinian state; it’s no longer the same division between right and left that was in the past.”

What about a party lead by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett?

“We were burned by him once in the so-called “Change-Government”. You would think that our dream would be a prime minister who wears a kippa, but Bennett did all the things he shouldn’t have done with the rabbinate, the religious councils and the kashrut reforms. It’s not that I think that Bibi respects Jewish traditions, but he understands what needs to be done, and that’s why he’s still in power. If Benny Gantz was a little more connected to traditions, a little wiser, there might be something to talk about with him.”

‘Netanyahu is dying to give, but he can’t’

This assessment is shared by one of the key figures in the United Torah Judaism party. “We’re not naïve,” he tells Shomrim. “We know that Bibi has no connection with religion. He had the insight, like a butcher recognized a good cut of meat, to recognize what direction the demographic situation was heading and learned to work with us. There’s no Bibi-ism with us; it’s Haredism – Bibi along with the interests of the ultra-Orthodox. As far as we are concerned, our enemy’s enemy is also our enemy. We are hated by the same people as him, so we forged an alliance of the rejected.”

And is that alliance now in danger?

“It’s living on borrowed time and not because Netanyahu doesn’t want to give us what we want; he’s dying to. The person who most wants to give the ultra-Orthodox what they want is Netanyahu, so we are not discriminating against him because we understand that he cannot do it. He does not have the power, because of [Attorney General] Gali Baharav-Miara. Behind closed doors, he told us that he wasn't successful. I tried, I debased myself, I paid a heavy price within Likud. Do you want to punish me and quit? Go ahead, nobody is waiting for you out there and I believe that I will eventually succeed in passing it’.”

Do you believe him?

“The public atmosphere is against us right now. Bibi talks about it a lot. And MKs from Likud also tell us, ‘We can’t even leave our homes because we are ashamed of this law.’ With the benefit of hindsight, some ultra-Orthodox now regret not having made sure that the law passed before the reforms, but no one expected the massacre (of October 7) and no one expected that we would be in the middle of war when the government resolution instructing the army not to recruit us expired.”

The purpose of the reform was to allow you to pass the Basic Law: Torah Study.

“We are aware of the fact that the reform was designed to serve us too and that it was not just an all-Likud thing. But notwithstanding our affection for the right and all our love for Netanyahu, in the end we need results. Even the most ardent ultra-Orthodox supporter of Netanyahu won’t let his son join the army. Period. The High Court has changed fundamental principles. It is unprecedented that all of the yeshiva students between the ages of 18 and 23 are no longer covered.”

They say that only the right can make peace. Maybe only the left can exempt the ultra-Orthodox from military service?

“In the aftermath of October 7, even Gantz, who once offered the ultra-Orthodox carte blanche to do whatever they pleased, will not be able to put forward a proposal for an ultra-Orthodox draft that the Grand Rabbi of the Ger Hasidim can accept. But the penny has started to drop for us. We have gotten used to there only being one savior,” he says, referring obliquely to Netanyahu, “and now we realize we have to look elsewhere. If it appears that the government is putting together legislation that we cannot live with, we (and Shas) would prefer to be in opposition when it happens. Maybe after that we’ll rejoin.”

Is this just a political spin of the ‘hold-me-back’ variety?

“In the past, when we wanted Bibi to help us, we would do that. Now, however, we believe that he cannot help, because he is the person who wants this government to survive the most.”

So, what’s the problem with the alliance?

“That we won’t be needed once Netanyahu leaves the political stage. All of the parties that boycott Likud because of Netanyahu will join forces with that party the day after he’s gone. Have you seen right-wing politicians unafraid to talk openly about ultra-Orthodox recruitment? They understand that, too. Once, whoever the ultra-Orthodox sided with would form the government; now the political reality is changing before our very eyes.

‘Shas voters are more pro-Bibi than Likudniks’

It is still too soon, however, to eulogize the strategic alliance between Netanyahu and the ultra-Orthodox, or between the right-wing bloc and the ultra-Orthodox. “You have to understand that, if the ultra-Orthodox don’t get what they want, they will quit,” says Dr. Gayil Talshir, a researcher into political ideology in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Political Science department. “But now, from their perspective, they have particularly strong leverage over Netanyahu to demand budgetary compensation. They are very keen to finalize the budget allocations for the ‘New Horizon’ project in their schools, as well as generous compensation in the next two-year budget for what they see as the injustice that was done to them – as well as any surpluses that may accrue this year. So, when you ask me whether the ultra-Orthodox will dismantle their alliance with the right and will open to negotiations with the center-left, my answer, in a word, is no. To expand: Netanyahu has created a honeytrap, which has left them with nowhere to go. Once, they were able to pivot and join whichever side offered them more; in 2009, after massively increasing his political strength, Netanyahu turned them into the flesh and blood of the right.”

There were warning signs even before 2009. In the 1996 election, acting on the advice of top U.S. political consultant Arthur Finkelstein, Netanyahu opted to embrace those members of the public who define themselves first as Jews and not as Israelis. One year later, he was infamously filmed whispering into the ear of Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri that “the left has forgotten what it is to be Jewish.” The spiritual leader of the Degel Hatorah party, Rabbi Elazar Shach, also gave a speech in 1990 – known as the ‘rabbits speech’ – in which he indicated his party’s preference for religiously traditional right-wing voters over the left.

“The ultra-Orthodox street has become more right-wing as it has undergone processes of modernization and Israelization,” Talshir says. “Shas supporters are bigger Bibi-ists than the Likudniks. So, when tensions emerged between Netanyahu and Dery over the Rabbis Law, Channel 14 ran an editorial segment in which it reminded viewers that Dery had abstained from the Knesset vote on Oslo Accords, implying that he shared responsibility for the October 7 disaster. Being linked to the Oslo Accords is the worst insult that can be hurled at a politician who relies on right-wing votes – and Netanyahu knows that only too well. The Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox community is also very right wing. Housing and Construction Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf (United Torah Judaism) addressed a conference, organized by Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and Yossi Dagan, calling for the resettlement of the Gaza Strip. These people will not let their politicians leave the bloc so quickly.”

Dery has other reasons to be angry with Netanyahu, apart from the Rabbis Law and ultra-Orthodox draft.

“True – starting with the fact that significant parts of the judicial reform that were not passed were supposed to serve Dery. The override clause [which would give the Knesset the power to override the Basic Laws] would have allowed him to serve as a minister and the annulment of the reasonableness clause would have prevented judges from ruling that it is unreasonable to appoint someone as finance minister if they have been convicted of accepting bribes, fraud and breach of trust. Dery also expected that the moment the High Court disqualified him from serving as a minister that Bibi would appoint him deputy prime minister, just like Benny Gantz was named alternate prime minister – but Netanyahu didn’t do that.”

And yet the strategic alliance remains strong and has already survived several bumps in the road.

“It actually started after some complicated years. In 2003, when he was finance minister, Netanyahu was viewed as the devil by the ultra-Orthodox because of the drastic cuts to child-support payments and transfer payments. They ended the relationship and in the 2006 election, Likud plummeted to 12 seats in the Knesset – the least it has ever received. That was a seminal moment in the relationship between Netanyahu and the ultra-Orthodox and he understood that he had to rectify the situation. As preparation for the 2009 election, he set up the national camp which created a bloc of parties all of which view Judaism primarily as a religion and not a national identity. During that period, the alliance was known as ‘the natural partnership.’ The fact that Netanyahu has fully funded the separatist ultra-Orthodox education system since 2009 has led them to be dependent on him. The state becomes the exclusive and generous funder of independent education systems which do not teach the core curriculum, have no educational content about the state and sever the connection between their students and Israeli society. They are no longer the kingmakers. They chose a side and went into opposition with it when the Bennett-Lapid government was in power.”

Do they believe it when they go onto the media and claim that this is the worst government ever from an ultra-Orthodox perspective?

“They really are in a state of hysteria. As far as they are concerned, they are paying the price for the war; after all, it’s because of the war that money they were promised as part of the coalition agreements is not being transferred. It’s true that they have not been given massive sums for the ministries for which they are responsible but they are not looking at Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who got everything they were promised, right down to the smallest detail. The ultra-Orthodox, in contrast, did not get the Basic Law: Torah Study, they didn’t get the override clause, they didn’t get the coalition budgets built into the state budget and they didn’t get a blanket draft exemption. That’s why they feel that they have been screwed over by the most right-wing government ever, even though they have been totally loyal to it and to Netanyahu over the years.”

Is there any scenario whereby they would quit the coalition?

“It depends how immediate the [draft] orders are and how many yeshiva students we’re talking about. [It depends] when they start feeling the end of the financial support and what happens with ‘New Horizon.’ Netanyahu, in my opinion, does not believe it will happen. When he was asked during the interview with [Channel 14’s] ‘The Patriots’ whether he was concerned that his ultra-Orthodox partners would dismantle the government, he replied, pointing to his forehead, that to do so would be ‘a mark of Cain, since it would mean the formation of a left-wing government that would establish a Palestinian terror state.’ He knows what works with votes from the right-wing bloc.”

‘The pressure from the national-religious bloc is very heavy’

Where will things go from here? The fundraising campaign that the yeshivas and kollels have launched among wealthier ultra-Orthodox communities in the United States, which was reported last week in the Hebrew media, can keep these institutions’ heads above water for a limited period. Some of these American philanthropists come from a more integrated and less separatist reality than the Israelis. They could, for example, demand things in exchange for their money and could express their displeasure at the intolerance and insularity of Torah-study institutions in Israel – if the latter refuse to compromise.

It was reported this week that Defense Minister Gallant said, during a closed-door meeting of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, that the IDF urgently needs an additional 10,000 soldiers and, in a compromise that is being discussed with the ultra-Orthodox, it appears that 3,000 more ultra-Orthodox men will be recruited – beyond those who have already received their draft paper – and that the quota will rise every tear. By the end of five years, half of the number of potentially eligible yeshiva students will be drafted annually. This agreement will be enshrined in regulations, rather than laws, which will allow the government to play with the numbers as needed.

The representatives of the ultra-Orthodox parties who have met with Gallant for working meetings to discuss the matter confirmed to Shomrim that the 50-percent recruitment goal is not a far-fetched compromise but remain reserved on whether it will come to fruition or not. “Gallant subsequently denied the move from laws to regulations but even if he does press forward with that, it is far from clear that the High Court would agree. In the end, after all, the ‘redhead’ [attorney Eliad Shraga, chair of the Movement for Quality Government in Israel] petitions against everything.

“As far as we are concerned, Gallant is a wildcard. He’s tolerant in conversations with us but then something goes awry. We talk to him and Yuli [Edelstein], who also treats us well, but there’s no solution. Yuli does not want to be a rubber stamp. He wants there to be a broad agreement. Over the past 20 years, nothing here has been passed with broad agreement – not even Daylight Savings Time. But when it comes to the ultra-Orthodox draft, that’s what he wants. The pressure from the national-religious camp is also very heavy because they would join us in any government.”

The prevalent opinion is that the ultra-Orthodox public still obeys the rabbis. It is the rabbis who decide which party their followers will vote for and which government to join – and they will also have the final say here. But in a community as conservative as the ultra-Orthodox population in Israel, the situation is always more complex. And in the complex ultra-Orthodox triumvirate – the spiritual leaders, the politicians and the public – there are always reciprocal relations. This week’s attack on Goldknopf’s vehicle is a manifestation of the anger that the ultra-Orthodox public feels toward the political leadership for still being members of a government that makes disastrous decisions for yeshiva students.

“A rabbinical edict is still a very powerful thing,” Shlomit Tur-Paz, director of the Center for Shared Society and head of the Religion and State Program at the Israel Democracy Institute, explains. “But the public is also significant, even when it comes to the rabbis, and certainly when it comes to the political leadership. The Jerusalem branch – which declared that they would die before joining the IDF – may be considered an extremist group which, in any case, wants to sever all ties with the state, but if it managed to get the ultra-Orthodox public angry and says that it is unacceptable, this could be significant. After all, in the heated ideological discussion about the draft law, everyone wants to show that they are holier than the pope and to mark the boundary. That is why it is very hard for the ultra-Orthodox to compromise.

“The Sephardi rabbis, who were worried that the draft quotas would come mainly from the Sephardim, have toed the line set by the Ashkenazi rabbinical leadership and declared that ‘No one is joining the IDF – not even those who are not studying Torah.’ This tied the hands of the moderate Sephardi politicians, who had made very different statements just days before. Interior Minister Moshe Arbel, for example, called on the ultra-Orthodox public to do some soul-searching and to understand that, in the aftermath of October 7, there was no moral justification for continuing this way.”

The tone within Shas is currently being set by the heads of the Sephardi Lithuanian yeshivas, who see themselves as more Lithuanian than the Ashkenazi Lithuanians and see their own students as part of the Torah-studying elite who must not be drafted under any circumstances. “Even before the last election, they did not have a say within Shas,” sources close to the party tell Shomrim. “The Shepherd Lithuanians voted for United Torah Judaism or did not vote at all and, of course, they were not members of the Council of Torah Sages. Dery brought them in to increase the party’s voter base and he got a group of voters who are made up of the second and third generation of people who returned to the faith, who create ‘hardline ultra-Orthodoxy, which is a lot less open to the world than the Shas supporters of previous generations.”

‘The ultra-Orthodox media attacks religious Zionism’

The traditional Shas voter – who served in the IDF or whose parents did – is less shocked by the idea that their own children will be drafted – certainly compared to the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox public, who generally do not have any friends, relatives or even acquaintances who served in the military. But they, too, are in no rush to compromise.

“I served in the army and my father fought in two wars,” says Shas activist Raziel Nahari. “I sent both my sons to yeshiva. One of them saw it as a blessing and is now studying Torah full time. The other one left the yeshiva and is now a company commander in the Kfir Division. I sent Dery a message saying ‘Don’t bring down the government, whatever you do. If you do, I won’t stand behind you anymore.’ Not because this is a perfect government but in order not to reward the High Court and the leftists. His assistant messaged me back saying ‘Don’t worry, Raziel. The government won’t fall’.”

“What is interesting,” says one avid reader of the ultra-Orthodox press, “is that the Haredi newspapers have started pressuring their politicians not to compromise. Precisely because they are perceived as more modern compared to the yeshiva students, they are now putting on a show of conservatism which will make them look good.”

Tur-Paz adds that, “the ultra-Orthodox press is attacking the religious Zionism camp more than the secular. Especially after that cartoon by Shay Charka in Makor Rishon showing a yeshiva student being carried by two soldiers on a stretcher and the viral post by Rabbi Ilay Ofran who very bluntly dismantled all the ultra-Orthodox arguments in favor of draft exemption. On Tuesdays, the ultra-Orthodox newspapers are given out free so they save the articles that they want to be distributed as widely as possible for that day. The articles against the religious Zionist camp were outrageous.”

Looking ahead, the pressing question remains: what will happen next? “ultra-Orthodox society is in a huge quandary. They realize that there’s an earthquake here; some even understand the constraints. But that has not made them change their patterns,” says one person who knows ultra-Orthodox society up close. “The expectation that they will change is wishful thinking on the part of secular society. Even if some of the modern ultra-Orthodox – who are, in any case, somewhere between being Haredi and being Israeli – join the IDF, it will be no more than a handful.”

Meir Hirshman, a fellow at the Haredi Institute for Public Affairs, who is expressing a personal opinion, says that “at modern ultra-Orthodox, parlor meetings, people say that there is no justification not to serve in the army during wartime. When they realize that they then have to make it happen, things get more difficult. I ask people whose children currently study in high-school yeshivas how they will handle it – and I have not heard a clear answer. When they hear from people like Rabbi David Leybel, who believed in ultra-Orthodox service in the IDF and is working to set up ultra-Orthodox military yeshivas – which the army is not even prepared for yet – they worry that their children will become less ultra-Orthodox. As a rule, the public is less pragmatic than the leaders but that is not relevant. They will go with whatever their leaders decide. It's not that they are not disappointed by the meager achievements that the ultra-Orthodox community has reaped from this government but there is also an understanding that no one will give them more, certainly not given the current security situation.”

Zeev Yagelnik, who owns a store selling antique books and Judaica in Bnei Brak, also points out that “the criticism of the leadership is from the fringes. The public accuses the High Court, which was perceived even beforehand as not being an objective body, of threatening every aspect of ultra-Orthodox life in Israel. The court’s view on the ultra-Orthodox draft is also perceived as discriminatory. People do not see themselves as parasites. As far as they are concerned, it’s exactly like being a conscientious objector. If you were to tell them, before October 7, that a student at a girls’ seminary would bake cakes for soldiers and that ultra-Orthodox women would open up their kitchens and cook for the troops, people would tell you you’re crazy. From an ultra-Orthodox perspective, there was progress there – and the whole draft story set us back again.”