Rabbi Dov Lando, the spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Degel HaTorah political faction, said on Sunday that religious soldiers were committing murder by serving in the military.
Lando specifically denounced those in the religious Zionist community who serve in the IDF during a meeting with the heads of the Mir Yeshiva at his home in Bnei Brak.
“If the state sends people, soldiers, for the honor of the state, and they kill people, is that also permissible?” he asked. “It’s very much murder.”
He went on, apparently referring to the government, “So they incite murder. They wage wars not for the sake of salvation, but only for the honor of the state.”
The exchange was the latest flare-up of tension over the longstanding exemptions from military service given to ultra-Orthodox men. Lando’s comments on Sunday were far from the first criticism he and other leading Haredi rabbis have issued of the IDF and its soldiers.
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The comments also exposed divisions in the coalition between the ultra-Orthodox, who oppose all service in the IDF, and the national religious camp, represented by Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an Israel Hayom conference in Jerusalem, July 5, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
The national religious camp often combines military service with yeshiva study and its soldiers frequently serve in combat and elite units, with many bearing the brunt of the ultra-Orthodox refusal to serve, which has left the army short-handed and forced some to serve hundreds of days of reserve duty.
Religious Zionism’s acquiescence to the ultra-Orthodox draft exemption demands is deeply unpopular with the community, and Lando’s comments sparked widespread anger, both towards the Haredim and the Religious Zionism leadership, which was largely silent on his comments.
Finally responding later Monday, Smotrich told yeshiva students: “This is a big dilemma. On the one hand, we cannot remain silent, and on the other hand, we cannot speak because we are careful with the words of the sages.”
Invoking the upcoming Tisha B’Av fast day that commemorates the destruction of the temples, Smotrich quoted the verse extoling against speaking evil of others.
While Smotrich was restrained, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a rare condemnation of the ultra-Orthodox leadership in a statement released by his office.
“IDF soldiers, secular and Haredi, leave their homes, their work, and their families, and risk their lives in order to protect the State of Israel, its citizens, and all of the nation of Israel,” Netanyahu said. “They deserve deep appreciation, gratitude, and full support from all segments of the public, and certainly from the world of Torah.”
UTJ MK Moshe Gafni (R) speaks with MK Yitzhak Goldknopf during a plenum session and a vote on a bill to weaken the powers of the attorney general, at the assembly hall of the Knesset in Jerusalem, July 15, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/ Flash90)
Netanyahu’s statement did not inspire remorse among the members of Degel HaTorah — one of the two factions that make up the Ashkenazi Haredi United Torah Judaism party — instead prompting the faction, led by MK Moshe Gafni, to come to Lando’s defense.
Insisting that Lando’s remarks were “holy,” the political faction insisted that those who are not religious, and therefore do not understand the true meaning behind his remarks, “would be better off not rushing to interpret them, and certainly not attacking them.”
Sources close to Lando were also cited by Channel 12 as saying that the rabbi’s comments were not an attack on religious soldiers, but were delivered as part of a “theoretical halachic discussion about a situation in which the state sends soldiers to war for the sake of its honor, and not for a war of survival.”
Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men protest outside Military Prison near Kfar Yona, central Israel, against the jailing of yeshiva students who failed to comply with an army recruitment order, June 17, 2026. (Tal Gal/ Flash90)
Haredi officials have been pushing for continued blanket exemptions from the draft for their communities after the High Court of Justice ruled in 2024 that the government must draft ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students into the military absent a legal framework to continue the decades-long exemptions.
After a months-long fierce legislative battle over the issue, which saw recurring Haredi street protests, the Knesset voted 63-52 last week to pass a deeply divisive quasi-constitutional Basic Law declaring Torah study a “foundational value” of the Jewish people.
The law was intended by its backers to make it harder for the High Court of Justice to continue to rule that Haredi draft exemptions are illegal and discriminatory, because it enshrines Torah study as an essential aspect of the state.
A second law, passed in a vote of 58-54, granted tens of thousands of Haredi draft evaders immunity from arrest until late January 2027, and extends that protection to those who become eligible for military service after it takes effect, effectively eliminating the threat of arrest and making it easier to refuse to enlist during that period. It also suspends ongoing criminal proceedings against those already facing enforcement measures.
The High Court froze implementation of that law a day later and scheduled a hearing on the matter for July 28.
Some 72,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged 18 to 24 are currently believed to be eligible for military service, but have not enlisted, despite mounting calls for their conscription as Israel has fought wars on multiple fronts since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack, while facing what the IDF says is an urgent manpower shortage.
Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, during a weekly teaching at the Yazdim synagogue in Jerusalem, on June 7, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/FLASH90)
Lando has previously said that those enforcing the conscription of Haredi men were fighting against God and the Torah, and accused Israel of declaring “war” on yeshiva students.
The 96-year-old rabbi has also ordered yeshiva students to ignore draft orders, and has said they are forbidden from speaking with military representatives.
His Shas counterpart, former Sephardi chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, regularly voices similar criticism, and, in October 2025, called a fellow rabbi and bereaved father of a slain soldier a heretic for advocating conscription for yeshiva students.
Both of the leading rabbis have frequently claimed that religious men and women who enlist in the IDF are pressured into leaving religion and complete their service as secular Jews.
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