If the State of Israel is to make it through this war intact, it must finally live by the covenant that has bound Jews together since Sinai: shared responsibility.
That principle has rarely faced a sterner test than it does today, when hundreds of thousands of citizen-soldiers are cycling through a fourth and even fifth tour in Gaza while tens of thousands of their haredi (ultra-Orthodox) peers remain exempt.
Into that breach has stepped Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein, who insists that a real conscription law – one that applies to every community, with teeth – must be written before the Knesset lifts a finger to pass it.
For this stand, he deserves the full-throated support of every Israeli who believes that our victory must be moral as well as military.
The toll of the reserve call-ups is no longer theoretical. Small businesses are collapsing because owners are back in uniform; mortgages are sliding into arrears; children are growing up with a parent who is exhausted or absent or wrestling with post-traumatic stress.
The IDF admits that its manpower is stretched to the limit, yet defense officials told Edelstein’s committee last week that only 1,721 haredi men have enlisted in the current draft cycle, a fraction of the 4,800 the army said it needed.
Out of almost 19,000 conscription orders issued, barely 232 were obeyed, and only 57 of those recruits joined combat units.
Those numbers would be sobering at any time; in the middle of a war that has already killed more than 600 soldiers, they are intolerable. Edelstein has therefore refused to rubber-stamp legislation that would lock a permanent exemption into law.
He has told colleagues he will “not accept ultimatums,” promising instead to deliver, within weeks, a draft that can stand up to the scrutiny of both the High Court and the families queuing at army bases with overnight bags and worn‑out hopes.
Edelstein is paying a palpable political price
For that refusal, he is paying a palpable political price.
The Prime Minister’s Office has let it be known that the bill will be passed “with or without” him; ultra‑Orthodox coalition partners have threatened to bring down the government if the law is not on the books by Shavuot; Likud insiders whisper that Edelstein will find himself off the list when the next primary rolls around.
Reservist families are fraying. Volunteer networks are delivering groceries, tending to children, and covering rent for officers who have not seen their own front doors in months.
When these Israelis ask why their neighbors’ healthy adult sons remain in yeshiva, they do not want theological lectures; they want an explanation that passes the basic test of fairness. Edelstein is trying to give them one.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders, sensing the public mood, are warning of early elections. But even if the coalition falls, the math of conscription will not change.
The IDF still needs bodies; the economy still needs functioning small businesses; Israel’s enemies are still probing for signs of fatigue.
A snap vote would only delay the reckoning and deepen the resentment. Edelstein is offering a path to avoid that crack-up by writing a law that most Israelis, including many haredim, can live with.
There is also a moral dimension. The halachic axiom pikuah nefesh – the duty to preserve life – has no footnotes exempting one sector.
When rockets fall on Sderot, they do not distinguish between knitted kippot and black hats. When reservists clear house after booby-trapped house in Khan Yunis, they are protecting every Jew, Arab, Druze, and Christian under Israel’s flag.
That universal shield obligates universal participation. Edelstein understands this; he is betting his career on it.
The Jerusalem Post, therefore, applauds Yuli Edelstein. We call on the government to stand down its threats, on opposition parties to lend him a majority, and on Israeli civil society to say, clearly and calmly, that the time for permanent exemptions has passed.
If the committee’s forthcoming draft meets the test of equity, it must move swiftly from blueprint to statute.
Reservists’ families deserve nothing less; the IDF’s exhausted battalions demand it; and the Jewish people’s covenant of mutual responsibility commands it.
Edelstein is carrying that covenant on his shoulders. The rest of us must not look the other way.
