BICOM

A violent protest took place in the Mea Shearim neighbourhood of Jerusalem yesterday after an ultra-Orthodox 19-year old was arrested earlier this week following his refusal to present himself at the IDF enlistment office.

Two arrests were made and one police officer was injured yesterday after hundreds of ultra-Orthodox men took to the streets, disrupted traffic, set rubbish bins alight and threw stones at police, who used water cannons to disperse the crowd. The protest follows the arrest on Sunday of religious seminary student Moshe Elashvill, who failed to appear at the IDF enlistment office as instructed. Legislation which granted exemption from enlistment for ultra-Orthodox students such as Elashvill recently expired. Elashvill is a follower of ultra-Orthodox Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach who has instructed his community to ignore IDF draft papers. On Wednesday a peaceful demonstration was held outside the military prison where Elashvill is being held

The protests come with the Knesset set to vote during the coming months on second and third readings of a bill aiming to create a more equitable military draft system, including mandatory enlistment for the vast majority of ultra-Orthodox students. The bill, drafted by a ministerial committee headed by Science, Technology and Space Minister Yaakov Peri of Yesh Atid, passed a first Knesset reading in July. The proposed legislation requires that all but 1,800 full-time ultra-Orthodox seminary students be required to enlist in either the IDF or civilian national service once they reach the age of 21. Failure to do so will result in imprisonment.

However, Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home party is keen to remove the clauses in the bill which allow for criminal sanctions against those ultra-Orthodox students who refuse to enlist, arguing that threats are unlikely to encourage their enlistment. However, Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party is adamant that there must be equality before the law, including criminal sanctions.