![Haredi Judaism](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Haredi_Judaism.jpg)
Exemption from military service in Israel is covered by the
Israeli Security Service Law (חוק שירות ביטחון) which states the grounds for exemption from serving in the
Israel Defense Forces. Exemptions are given based on the following criteria:
*
Expatriate
An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. In common usage, the term often refers to educated professionals, skilled workers, or artists taking positions outside their home country, either ...
s
* Medical or psychological reasons
*
Marriage
Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between ...
,
pregnancy
Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops (gestation, gestates) inside a woman, woman's uterus (womb). A multiple birth, multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins.
Pregnancy usually occur ...
or
parenthood (for women only), in accordance with section 39 of the Security Service Law.
* Exemption for
religious
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...
reasons (for women only), in accordance with sections 39 and 40 of the Security Service Law.
*
Exemption on grounds of conscience. It is a relatively rare exemption, which is granted to both women and men who are usually ordered to spend a sentence in the military jail before being granted this exemption.
* Studying in a
Yeshiva
A yeshiva (; he, ישיבה, , sitting; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are st ...
might allow the postponement of the recruitment in six months, and after that one might more easily be granted a postponement for an additional six months and so on, without any limitations, as long as the student continues his studies in the Yeshiva (for men only). This exemption is called ''
Torato Omanuto
Torato Umanuto ( he, תורתו אומנותו, , "Torah study is his job") is a special arrangement for the Israeli Haredi sector that allows young men enrolled in Haredi yeshiva academies to complete their studies before their conscription in t ...
'' and is enshrined in the
Tal Law.
* Some young people are exempted if they hold a criminal record.
Arab citizens of Israel (who make up a little under one-fifth of the country's population) are also exempted from military service; this exemption does not originate via Israeli
statutory law
Statutory law or statute law is written law passed by a body of legislature. This is opposed to oral or customary law; or regulatory law promulgated by the executive or common law of the judiciary. Statutes may originate with national, stat ...
, but rather is based on IDF Human Resource Department guidelines, issued under the IDF's discretionary powers pursuant to the law.
[Israel: Military Draft Law and Enforcement]
Law Library of Congress, Global Legal Research Directorate (November 2019). As a result, Arab Muslims, Arab Christians, and
Bedouins
The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu (; , singular ) are nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert and Ar ...
are not conscripted,
[ although small numbers of each community voluntarily join the IDF. By contrast, members of Israel's small Druze and Circassian communities are conscripted.][
]
Statistics
According to 2007 IDF figures, the largest single group of young (Jewish) Israelis who avoided conscription consisted of women who claim exemptions on religious grounds. This group made up 35% of all women eligible for the draft. Amongst males, the overall percentage of non-participation was 27.7%. This figure included 11.2% for ''Torato Omanuto'', 7.3% for medical and psychological grounds, 4.7% because of criminal records and 4.2% because of residing abroad. In 2014, the law changed such that the majority of the Haredi
Haredi Judaism ( he, ', ; also spelled ''Charedi'' in English; plural ''Haredim'' or ''Charedim'') consists of groups within Orthodox Judaism that are characterized by their strict adherence to ''halakha'' (Jewish law) and traditions, in oppos ...
Jews were no longer exempt from the military service.[ Another law change to grant exemptions again was contested by the High Court in 2017.][ This ban on exemptions has now theoretically come into force but a lack of government action means nothing has changed in practice.
By 2020, about 32.9% of men and 44.3% of women received exemptions from IDF service, and an additional 15% of men dropped out before completing their term of service.][Anna Ahronheim]
A third of Israeli youth do not enlist in IDF
''Jerusalem Post'' (January 19, 2020). Of those who received exemptions, some 44.7% were Haredim, 46.6% were secular
Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...
, and 8.7% were religious Zionist
Religious Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת דָּתִית, translit. ''Tziyonut Datit'') is an ideology that combines Zionism and Orthodox Judaism. Its adherents are also referred to as ''Dati Leumi'' ( "National Religious"), and in Israel, the ...
.[ There was a noted increase in exemptions granted for reasons of mental health.][
]
Non-recruitment
Accordance with section 36 of the Security Service Law, the security minister may exempt certain people from an army service in the IDF, for reasons related to the volume of the military forces or reserve forces, or for reasons related to educational needs, settlement needs, security needs, economy needs, family needs and various other reasons.
In accordance with section 5 of the Security Service Law, a medical board is authorized to determine if a candidate is unfit for national security service.
Draft evasion
In 2005 32.1% of the Jewish women did not enlist in the military on religious grounds, and the overall rate of non-enlisted Jewish women has risen to 42.3%. These high rates indicate that refraining from the draft is relatively common, at least among Israeli women. In 2008, the proportion of women who did not enlist rose to 44%, from which 34.6% did not enlist on religious grounds. As a result, the Israeli military tightened the way it handles cases in which Jewish women request an exemption on religious grounds, through investigating the truthfulness of their claims, in order to expose young women who lied about being religious.
* Marrying with the sole purpose of receiving the exemption granted to all married women, without any intention of the actual realization of the marriage (usually the woman would seek to divorce after being granted the desired exemption).
* Displaying false medical certificates or pretending to be ill, in order to obtain an exemption based on health reasons.
* A woman would ask to be exempted for religious reasons, while in real life she is not religious.
* Leaving Israel before a person gets to the age of recruitment, and not returning to the country despite the attempts of the recruiting office to contact the individual. A common method which the state uses to fight this trend is to avoid extending the validity of a person's passport when it expires.
Section 94 of the Security Service Law describes another method of draft evasion: defecting from the military on the day of recruitment. When a soldier fails to show up to be recruited he is defined by the military as a draft evader. After being defined as a draft evader, an arrest warrant is issued against him and thereafter the military police is responsible for locating and capturing him. After being caught by the military police, it would be decided whether the draft evader would go through disciplinary proceedings (which means that they would get a limited punishment and not a criminal record), or whether he or she would face a military court where the punishment is not limited and the criminal conviction is registered.
Public censure
Draft evasion is a criminal act and condemned by the majority of Israelis. Among the strongest opponents to the Israeli government policy, a few people support draft evasion, but they are a minority in the Israeli public. After the 2006 Lebanon War media campaigns were organized against draft evasion and to promote enlistment, especially in combat units. Head of Human Resources Elazar Stern
Elazar Stern ( he, אֶלְעָזָר שְׁטֵרְן) is an Israeli politician and military general. He was a major general (res.) in the Israel Defense Forces, serving as Head of the Manpower Directorate, commander of the IDF Officers Trainin ...
and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were particularly vocal on this subject:
Israeli celebrities and public figures who evaded the draft in their youth (mostly before they became famous) have been condemned.
* Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik
Dalia Itzik ( he, דליה איציק ''Dalya Itsik''; born 20 October 1952) is a former Israeli politician who last served as a member of the Knesset for Kadima. She has previously served in several ministerial positions, and on 4 May 2006 beca ...
: After graduating from a religious high school, "Evelina de Rothschild," Itzik declared she was religious and was granted an exemption from military service.
* In 1992, Israeli rock singer Aviv Geffen
Aviv Geffen ( he, אביב גפן, born 10 May 1973) is an Israeli rock musician, singer, songwriter and the son of writer and poet Yehonatan Geffen and Nurit Makover, brother of actress Shira Geffen, and an alumnus of Rimon School of Jazz and C ...
stated that he did not serve in the IDF and encouraged people not to enlist. Later, Geffen claimed that the army exempted him from service for medical reasons.
* Israeli model Bar Refaeli
Bar Refaeli ( he, בר רפאלי; born ) is an Israeli model, television host, businesswoman and actress. She is among the most internationally successful models to come from Israel, appearing on the cover of the 2009 ''Sports Illustrated'' Sw ...
, who married a few days before her recruitment day, received an exemption from the military and divorced soon thereafter. In an interview with ''Yedioth Ahronoth
''Yedioth Ahronoth'' ( he, יְדִיעוֹת אַחֲרוֹנוֹת, ; lit. ''Latest News'') is a national daily newspaper published in Tel Aviv, Israel. Founded in 1939 in British Mandatory Palestine, ''Yedioth Ahronoth'' is the largest paid n ...
'' published in October 2007, Refaeli stated: "I'm not against the army and I really wanted to serve, but I do not regret that I did not enlist, because this decision has paid off big time" and added, "What does it matter, Uganda
}), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The sou ...
or Israel? For me, it does not matter. Why is it good to die for our country? Isn't it better to live in New York? For what reason do children aged 18 need to sacrifice their lives? It makes no sense that people should die so that I can live in Israel.".
* During the 2000s, Israeli singer Jacko Eisenberg
Jacko Eisenberg ( he, ג'קו אייזנברג; born November 30, 1980) is an Israeli singer who won the fourth season of ''Kochav Nolad'', the Israeli version of ''idol series, Pop Idol''.
Biography
Eisenberg was born and raised in Netanya, Isr ...
stated that the IDF exempted him from service and he did not regret it.
* Israeli singer Maya Buskila was exempted from a military service on grounds of her being religious. Buskila then participated in a swimwear campaign in which she was photographed in a very revealing swimwear. Later, Buskila expressed regret for not serving, explaining that she did not know at the time that she would become a role model for young girls. Eventually Buskila decided to enlist in the military, and on 13 April 2008, at the age of 30, she was drafted for a relative short compulsory service in the IDF.
Impact on civilian life
An individual's military service is usually a topic of discussion in many job interviews in Israel, and is information job seekers usually would add to their resume. Nevertheless, in 2003 the Regional Court in Tel Aviv declared that the requirement of military service as a precondition to be hired for a position constitutes discrimination and is forbidden if military service is not relevant for that position. The Israeli Equal Opportunities Act (חוק שוויון ההזדמנויות בעבודה) was revised in the mid 1990s to prohibit employers from asking candidates about their military profile in the IDF. Nevertheless, legally there is as yet no prohibition against questions regarding an individual's military service or the fact that he did not enlist in the military - information which might be used later on as part of the many considerations which would contribute to an interviewer's decision not to hire the individual.
In the years since the Equal Opportunities Act was revised, and despite the changes in the Israeli public regarding military service, there is still largely a negative attitude toward those who have not served in the IDF. As an example, a substantial proportion of the employment ads in the newspapers state explicitly that only candidates who have carried out "full military service" will be considered for that position.
See also
* New Profile New Profile () is a movement for transforming Israeli society into a "civilian" one ("" – a term recently coined by parts of the Israeli left wing to highlight their view of the present society as "recruited" or "militarized"). It is a volunta ...
* Profile 21
Profile 21 ( he, פרופיל 21) is a medical profile code used by the military of Israel to classify Israelis who are deemed to have physical or psychological disabilities, making them permanently unfit for military service.
Additionally, Profi ...
* Refusal to serve in the Israeli military
Refusal to serve in the IDF is when citizens of Israel refuse to serve in the Israel Defense Forces or disobey orders on the grounds of pacifism, antimilitarism, religious philosophy, or political disagreement with Israeli policy such as the occupa ...
* Women in the Israel Defense Forces
Women in the Israel Defense Forces have had a significant presence on the country's political scene since its independence in 1948. Israel is one of only a few countries in the world to have a mandatory military service requirement for women, ...
References
External links
The Israeli Security Service Law (Consolidated Version)
published on the Israeli National Insurance Institute site (Hebrew)
*
* {{cite news , author=Dor Glick , date=7 February 2008 , url=http://www.haaretz.co.il/misc/1.1552492 , script-title=he:המשתמטים מצה"ל משיבים מלחמה , language=he , trans-title=The draft evaders are fighting back , newspaper= Haaretz
Conscription in Israel