CITYWIDE — A PROTEST AGAINST ISRAEL’S FORCED CONSCRIPTION takes place in New York City on Sunday afternoon, Oct. 19, at the Israeli consulate in Manhattan. The Central Rabbinical Congress which represents Orthodox Jewish groups, including the Satmars in Williamsburg, is organizing the protest to bring awareness to what they assert is mandatory and unlawful conscription of religious Orthodox Jews, also known as the Haredi.

When the State of Israel was established in 1948, then-prime Minister David Ben-Gurion granted the Haredi community an exemption from mandatory military service for Jews whose full-time occupation was Torah study. This exemption was implemented through a regulation from Israel’s Defense Ministry, which was later ruled to have no legal authority in this regard. Israel’s increasingly secular population also began to resent the Haredi exemption, explains the Israeli Policy Forum.

After the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in June 2024 that the government must begin drafting Haredi men. The Orthodox groups are protesting this ruling, saying that the Torah forbids the State of Israel. They will reference Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights protecting conscientious objection.

The groups also want the Israeli consulate and American religious Jews to be aware of the IDF’s nighttime raids and arrests in Orthodox neighborhoods to enforce the draft.

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