Bill on Draft Splits Israel Lawmakers and a Family

Michael Melchior is an Orthodox rabbi and a Cabinet minister in the government of Prime Minister Ehud Barak. When a bitter debate opened in parliament Monday on a controversial bill that enshrines military exemptions for religious men, Melchior serenely gave it his support.

Melchior’s son Yair is 17 and will soon be drafted into the Israeli army. Outside the halls of parliament, Yair is leading a movement against the bill his father advocates. Yair firmly believes that the ultra-Orthodox must serve in the military.

The bill, which won preliminary approval late Monday, touches one of the most contentious issues of religious-secular relations, dividing parliament and the nation, and leaving its mark on the Melchior family.

“You think you have problems in Israeli society,” the elder Melchior said. “I have it around my dining room table!”

Barak’s government faced another life-threatening political test when he took the bill to the parliament, or Knesset, and pleaded for its passage. The bill has triggered a bitter national debate over the meaning of democracy and duty to one’s country.

Barak, a former army commander, won a landslide election last year with a campaign that included promises to end the practice that allows tens of thousands of yeshiva students to skip the army service that is obligatory for most other Israeli men and women.

But Monday, Barak--who needs the religious to keep his coalition government together--argued that the legislation was a compromise to bring the ultra-Orthodox, or haredim, into the mainstream, which many shun, while preserving their pious way of life.

Opponents, including the left and secular segments of the population who elected Barak, argued that the measure would encourage more draft-dodging because it formalizes exemptions. It is patently unfair for some Israelis to be asked to sacrifice their lives for their country while others are excused, they argued. Many in the army command also oppose the bill.

After the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, David Ben-Gurion permitted about 400 yeshiva students to forgo the draft. Today, the number who defer or evade service is about 30,000.

The bill that went before the Knesset on Monday contained the recommendations of a blue-ribbon panel, headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Tsvi Tal, that was established after the high court ruled late last year that the haredim could no longer enjoy a blanket exemption from the draft.

The measure would let yeshiva students defer military service until the age of 23, then enter the work force for a year while deciding on an abbreviated army duty or a form of community service.

“Nobody is really pleased with this compromise,” said Melchior, who is Barak’s minister for diaspora affairs. “It’s far from what we want to see in Israeli society, where all obligations and rights should be divided equally. . . . But the other part of the story is, this is the situation for the last 52 years, and the question is what to do about it.”

Melchior, speaking in an interview as he rushed to the Knesset session, said the way he and his son see the bill pretty much sums up the Israeli divide. Melchior sees it as a glass half full--some haredim will end up in the army--while Yair sees the glass half empty--too many will not.

“It [the bill] brings us a big, large jump in the right direction,” the elder Melchior said.

But Yair, who, like his father, is an Orthodox Jew, said: “This is the worst thing that can happen--the Knesset will say there are two kinds of Jews: those who give things to their country and get something back, and those who only get.”

Military service is one of the most hotly debated topics dividing the religious and secular communities of Jewish Israel. (Arab Israelis do not serve in the army.) The ultra-Orthodox maintain that full-time study of the Torah is needed for the Jewish people and their culture to flourish after the destruction of the Holocaust.

But other Israelis resent the haredim, whom they see as a burden on society because they live off state welfare. Haredi men cannot work while they study and are barred from some jobs for not having done military service.

With much of his own government in revolt, Barak was concerned that he would not attain the majority needed to pass the measure. He ordered all members of his One Israel Party to vote in favor of it regardless of their personal opinions. Some decided to absent themselves or abstain instead. Still, the measure passed on its initial reading. It will come up later for another vote.

“It makes no sense to send the military police into the yeshivas to take out people and [force them] to be fighter pilots or tank commanders,” Barak said Monday in defending the bill as the necessary “gradual” approach to pressing haredim into duty.

As the issue divided the Melchior family, it also crossed political lines. Some in Barak’s party opposed and some favored the measure; the main opposition party, the right-wing Likud, was similarly split.

While debate raged on the Knesset floor Monday, protesters spent their sixth day camped out in a tent across the street from Barak’s office. They were part of a fast-growing movement called Awakening that opposes letting the haredim off the military hook. Yair Melchior is one of the founders.

Most were young men of military age, many having already completed their army duty. They angrily denounced Barak for breaking his campaign promises and for allowing the creation of a two-tier system of service to the country.

“Exemption for the haredim is unjust and unequal,” declared Yuval Lester, a 21-year-old army veteran who lost both hands in a grenade blast. He wears two bright blue prosthetic arms. “When you look at me, you see the best example of inequality and injustice.”