Ultra-Orthodox crowds targeted two Haredi MKs from different parties on Saturday night, protesting their cooperation in the advancement of a bill to regulate conscription for yeshiva students.

In the first incident following Shabbat, extremists smashed a window of Shas MK Yoav Ben-Tzur’s vehicle as he left a weekly lesson in Jerusalem.

Later that night, dozens of Haredi demonstrators protested outside the home of United Torah Judaism MK Ya’akov Asher in Bnei Brak. The protest appeared to be disorganized, with participants flanked by police vehicles and additional officers arriving to control the crowd.

The riot surrounding Ben-Tzur’s vehicle drew condemnation across the political spectrum, including from his party. The protests are the latest instance in which a hardline faction of Haredim has demonstrated its rejection of any plan that would conscript yeshiva students.

“The Shas movement strongly condemns the severe attack on MK Yoav Ben-Tzur’s car, which was committed in Jerusalem by a handful of rioters,” Ben-Tzur’s party said in a statement. “Violent actions like this, which desecrate God’s name, are not the path of the Torah, and do not represent any God-fearing community.”

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Haredi men have long been exempted from Israel’s mandatory draft, a practice the High Court declared illegal last year.  In addition, the Israel Defense Forces has said that it faces an acute manpower shortage owing to Israel’s conflicts in Gaza and on other fronts, heightening the pressure to create a framework that would regulate Haredi conscription.

Haredi parties have pushed for continued draft exemptions, including by breaking with the government and boycotting coalition legislation. Late last month, some 200,000 ultra-Orthodox men blocked the entrance to Jerusalem for a mass protest against conscription.

Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth said on Saturday that he was close to presenting the final text of a bill on the issue. Bismuth says the law will mark a significant change by drafting a portion of Haredi men who are not enrolled in a yeshiva.

But opposition lawmakers have charged that it will enable most ultra-Orthodox men to keep avoiding military service, while imposing only weak penalties for those who evade the draft and paving the way for the Haredi parties to rejoin Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition.


Shas MK Yoav Ben-Tzur (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

Politicians with differing positions on the conscription bill united on Saturday in condemnation of the attack on Ben-Tzur’s car.

“I condemn in the strongest terms the attack on MK Yoav Ben-Tzur. This is not the way of the Torah, this is not the way of the State of Israel; these violent criminals must be dealt with severely,” Opposition Leader Yair Lapid posted on X.

The attack constitutes “a serious crossing of the line and a blatant attempt to intimidate public officials,” declared Bismuth. “Sensitive issues, such as military conscription, will be discussed in the proper forum, with serious dialogue, careful consideration, and democratic decisions. Not in the street, and not under threats from extremists.”

Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman blamed the violence on the longstanding conscription exemption enjoyed by yeshiva students, which he has long opposed.

“When a person is conditioned to idleness and draft-dodging, he becomes violent when someone tries to take that idleness away from him,” Liberman said.


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