More than 1,800 chareidi men reported to IDF induction centers in the first six months of the current enlistment cycle, a 50 percent uptick over the same window a year earlier, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara told the High Court in a filing as the legal showdown over chareidi conscription drags into another year.

The figures, drawn from IDF data and covering July through December 2025, were submitted as part of the attorney general’s ongoing reporting to the court on enforcement of its June 2024 ruling, which struck down the longstanding arrangement exempting bnei yeshiva from mandatory military service. The 2024 enlistment year closed on June 30, 2025.

Even with the increase, Baharav-Miara wrote, the numbers fall far short of what the military says it needs, language that has become a fixture in her court submissions as she pushes the government to impose harsher sanctions on chareidi men who have not reported for duty.

The army has set a target of roughly 5,700 chareidi recruits for the current year after coming in well below its 4,800-soldier goal last cycle, when an estimated 2,700 enlisted. IDF planners have told the Knesset they want a further 12,000 troops overall to relieve standing forces and reservists strained by the war.

Some 24,000 initial draft notices have gone out to chareidi men since the summer of 2024, but only a small percentage of those called have reported, a gap that has fueled escalating clashes between the attorney general’s office and the coalition. Baharav-Miara and her deputy, Gil Limon, have pressed Defense Minister Yisrael Katz to invoke administrative penalties already on the books, including blocking driver’s licenses, passports and the renewal of state identification cards for those who do not show.

United Torah Judaism and Shas have repeatedly accused the attorney general of using the courts to bypass the Knesset and override a religious-status arrangement that has stood for decades. The chareidi parties have framed Baharav-Miara as the primary obstacle to legislation that would restore a workable exemption framework, and the cabinet voted in August 2025 to remove her from office, a decision tied up in ongoing court challenges.

Inside the army, recruitment infrastructure designed for chareidi soldiers has continued to expand. The IDF marked its single largest day of chareidi enlistment on Jan. 7, when 537 men reported, including 230 routed to combat positions and 307 to combat-support roles. The all-chareidi Chashmonaim Brigade graduated its first cohort of squad commanders in December.

Roughly 63,000 to 70,000 chareidi men of draft age are listed as eligible for service, according to figures previously cited in court filings. Gedolei Yisrael and the major chareidi parties have remained firm in their position that limud haTorah is the spiritual backbone of Klal Yisrael and that wholesale conscription of bnei yeshiva would inflict lasting damage on the Torah world.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)