In a landmark ruling this month, Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled unanimously that the government must draft ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students into the military, that no longer is there any legal framework to continue the decades-long practice to grant them blanket exemption from army service, The Times of Israel reported. The justices made clear they were not telling the state how many Haredi yeshiva students to draft or how quickly, indicating that the process could be gradual. But they warned the government that it must begin now.

The High Court’s decision means that after decades of political and societal controversy over the issue, there is now a legal obligation for young Haredi men to join their Jewish Israeli comrades and serve in the military.

This new reality has come about largely due to the confluence of two major events: The expiration of the original law allowing for blanket service exemptions, and the cataclysmic Oct. 7 Hamas attack and its aftermath, which threw into sharp relief the IDF’s need for more manpower. Currently, an estimated 63,000 Haredi men had been exempt from military service. The IDF has stated that it would be able to draft 3,000 Haredi yeshiva students in the 2024 enlistment year, in addition to accommodating an annual average of 1,800 Haredi men who choose to enlist