In a move that could be seen as possibly counterproductive to what’s already an unpopular cause to everyone else in the state of Israel, members of the Peleg Yerushalmi sect of Ultra-Orthodox Jews on Sunday blocked traffic along Highway 4 east of the Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak to protest the government’s moves towards ending the exemption from compulsory military service granted to them and other Haredi groups since the country’s founding in 1948, the Jerusalem Post reports.
Blocking traffic to draw attention to your refusal to serve two years – like the vast majority of the adults stuck in the gridlock you’re causing did – is a way to push back on the gradual end of the exemption, voided last year by the country’s Supreme Court. Might not be the best way however.
Fun fact: There had been an understandable, reasonable cause for implementing the exemption back in 1948 as after the Holocaust there were precious few religious scholars left – about 400 – to carry on Judaic tradition and there was plenty of reason to exempt them from constant wars with hostile Arab states on three sides. That was the loophole that was exploited to end with modern estimates of about 25 percent of fighting age men exempted from serving in the IDF which, it should be noted, does not necessarily mean every single soldier fights in combat every day.