Dodging The Draft Question

Tal Commission plan does little to mend
secular-religious rift on drafting yeshiva students.

DAVID LANDAU
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

T

Jerusalem

he criticism that greeted a plan to_allow
yeshiva students to decide for themselves
whether they will serve in the army
underscores the polarization in Israel on
synagogue-state issues.
The plan issued by a government-appointed com-
mission drew fire not only from secularists on both
ends of the political spectrum. Some haredi, or fer-
vently Orthodox, groups also expressed reservations
about the panel's recommendations.
The commission, led by former Supreme Court
Justice Zvi Tal, proposed that yeshiva students be
given a "trial year" between the ages of 23 and 24 to
experience life outside the yeshiva.
Anyone deciding to continue "on the outside"
would then be inducted for a short period of mili-
tary service or other national service, followed by the
annual reserve duty that other Israeli citizens are
obliged to serve.
When the panel's recommendations were issued
last week, Tal said they would enable thousands of .
haredim to enter the business world after their brief
army service, instead of having to remain in a yeshi-
va until age 40 to maintain their army exemption.
Prime Minister Ehud Barak formed the Tal
Commission following a 1998 ruling by the High
Court of Justice that canceled a decades-old arrange-
ment under which the yeshiva students are entitled
to draft exemptions.
The justices said at the time that the arrange-
ment, which has sparked tensions between secular
and Orthodox Israelis, had created a growing sense
of inequality in Israeli society.
In 1954, when the arrangement was signed, some
400 yeshiva students were granted deferrals. Now,
according to the Tal Commission, that number has
reached 30,000. Of these, the report says, some
14,000 are unlikely to perform national service.
Moreover — and this is the major cause of the
mounting public unrest that indirectly led to the
commission's creation — that figure is "rapidly ris-
ing," according to the report.
Since the commission issued its recommendations
April 13, criticism has come from three main quar-
ters:
• Non-Orthodox politicians and commentators,
both from the political left and right, feel the corn-
mission failed to redress the fundamental inequity
inherent in the yeshiva deferral system.
• The army believes the Tal report enshrines the

4/21

2000

28

present, inequitable system and that this could erode
morale among soldiers.
• Some sections of the Ashkenazi haredi commu-
nity believe that any tampering with the present
arrangements could cause wholesale damage to - hare-
di yeshivot.
Army sources, citing the report's finding that 9.2
percent of this year's potential inductees deferred
their service, predict that the figure will rise to 15
percent within a relatively few years.
These sources, clearly anxious to persuade the
government and the Knesset to reject the report's
recommendations, demand that a numerical cap be
set on the number of deferments — both on the
overall total and on the number granted each year.
The sources also contend that the choice of what
form of service the former yeshiva students perform
should be decided by the army, not by the individ-
ual student after his "test year," as the Tal
Commission appears to recommend. -
Political criticism has centered on the proposal to
make the recommendations law. Legislators from

many parties say this would make the present situa-
tion even worse.
If the deferment system became law, it would
take on a new legitimacy that it does not deserve,
say the critics, who are likewise unimpressed by the
commission's suggestion that the legislation contain
a five-year review clause.
Prime Minister Ehtid Barak has so far refrained
from taking sides in the debate.
Tal wrote in his introduction that several mem-
bers of the commission were uncomfortable with the
recommendations perpetuating the present system.
"But even those members who oppose the defer-
ral in principle believe that the change they want to
see will come about only by means of gradual and
moderate steps" that will "facilitate the haredi com-
munity's partial and gradual involvement in the
economy and in national service."
The commission added, significantly, that their
long discussions with expert witnesses and among
themselves had convinced them that "the problem is
not one of security," but rather "one of society." ❑