Israel’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled the military can begin drafting ultra-Orthodox men for mandatory service. The historic ruling effectively puts an end to a longstanding system that granted ultra-Orthodox men exemptions from military service while still requiring mandatory enlistment for the country’s secular Jewish majority.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government relies on two ultra-Orthodox parties, both of which see conscription exemptions as key to keeping their constituents in religious seminaries and out of a military that might test their conservative customs.
The law allowing the exemption for seminary students expired last year, but the Israeli government continued to allow them not to serve. Now, the country’s Supreme Court ruled that in the absence of a new legal basis for the exemption, the state must draft them.
Leaders of those parties said they were not happy with the ruling but issued no immediate threat to the government.
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