BNEI BRAK, MAY 4 (AP): Moshe Prigan starts his day off just like many other men in the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak with his morning prayer. It’s only later that the routine takes an unexpected twist, when he puts on his air force uniform and heads to the Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv.
The 30-year-old captain doesn’t just serve in the military. He also recruits other ultra-Orthodox Jewish men to enlist, something the cloistered community traditionally has avoided doing.
But with Israel recently passing a contentious law to gradually increase ultra-Orthodox enlistment, soldiers like Prigan could symbolize a historic shift among those known in Hebrew as “haredim,” or those who fear God.
“The haredi community is a thinking community. They realize that what was cannot continue being,” Prigan said. “The Arab Spring is also happening in the Haredi community. There is a Haredi Spring taking place as the Internet and the smartphones develop. You can’t avoid it.”
For Israel’s 66 years of existence, the ultra-Orthodox mostly have kept their distance from mainstream society by sticking close to their insular neighborhoods and dedicating their lives to study and prayer. With government acquiescence, they also have skipped military service, which is compulsory for most Jewish men.
The issue of military service is at the core of a cultural war over the place of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israeli society today.
Draft exemptions go back to Israel’s establishment in 1948, when the government allowed several hundred gifted students to pursue religious studies. The number of exemptions has grown over the years, with thousands of young religious men evading the draft to pursue seminary studies while most other Jewish men are conscripted for three years of mandatory service.
The exemptions have caused widespread resentment toward the ultra-Orthodox and were a central issue in parliamentary elections last year.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders have vowed to resist the new law. They insist their young men serve the nation through prayer and study, thus preserving Jewish learning and heritage, and by maintaining a pious way of life that has kept the Jewish faith alive through centuries of persecution. They fear integration into the secular military will undermine their lifestyle, in which older men often avoid the workforce and collect welfare stipends while continuing to study full time.