Day 583 - Is coalition really in danger over Haredi draft bill?

The Times of Israel Daily Briefing

The Times of Israel

News

4.4 • 864 Ratings

🗓️ 11 May 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

Political reporter Sam Sokol and reporter Sue Surkes join host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today's episode.

The Knesset came back from spring break last week and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox coalition partners have been pushing for the passage of legislation enshrining military exemptions for their community, after the High Court ruled in June last year that the dispensations, in place for decades, were illegal since they were not based in law. The legislation has long been held up in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, whose chairman, Yuli Edelstein (Likud), has pledged that he will “only produce a real conscription law that will significantly increase the IDF’s conscription base.” Sokol unpacks this complicated situation.

Surkes reports on Magen 48, an initiative to train civil defense teams at 66 localities within the Gaza border area — including the city of Sderot — and raise their skill set to that of IDF fighters.

We then learn about "She-Rise," a program that teaches women in the western Negev how to leverage their skills and create change in their communities.

Check out The Times of Israel's ongoing liveblog for more updates.

For further reading:

‘The final deadline’: Could the IDF conscription crisis bring down Netanyahu’s government?

After October 7, IDF said to increase penalties for deserters, but not draft dodgers

Edelstein urges ‘real solution’ as work set to begin on revising Haredi draft bill

IDF joins forces with NGO to turn community security teams into lean fighting machines

Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch.

IMAGE: Haredi Jews protest and clash with police during a protest against the drafting of ultra-Orthodox Jews to the Israeli army, Jerusalem, May 5, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Times of Israel's daily briefing.
0:06.1	Today is Sunday, May 11th, Day 583 of the war.
0:11.5	I'm Amanda Borschal Dan here with our political correspondent Sam Sokol and reporter Sue Sirks.
0:16.8	Thank you both for joining me today.
0:18.3	Morning.
0:18.9	Good morning.
0:19.8	As the IDF is poised to roll out a much larger mission in the Gaza Strip, all eyes are on the
0:28.3	ultra-Orthodox, the Haredi community and the fight for a universal conscription bill.
0:34.6	Sam is here to discuss what is happening on that front and more specifically what is
0:40.0	not. Sue is here just back from reporting on the Gaza envelope border with the Gaza Strip and she's
0:47.5	going to tell us about two new initiatives. One called McGain 48, which is bringing security teams up to spec with the level of IDF soldiers in terms of their training and the other.
1:00.6	Perhaps for Mother's Day, perhaps not, is a woman's initiative which is worthy of Rosie the Riveter.
1:07.2	So all of this and more when we're back.
1:14.6	Thank you. So all of this and more when we're back. Tolkien's trilogy was a perfect book to send to a POW.
1:20.6	Very well-defined good and evil.
1:23.6	And it was a great escape from the physical environment that we were in.
1:28.6	It's November 16, 1973, and we're at the military section of the Lode Airport.
1:34.1	A red and white, DC-6 passenger plane lands, and out of it comes a stream of young men.
1:39.8	Ten men known collectively as Shvuyi Milchem It At Atasha, the POWs of the War of Attrition.
1:47.0	All of them had been held, most of the time together, in an Egyptian prison for more than three and a half years.
1:53.1	So it was very much a kibbutz.
1:56.3	I want to draw your attention to a small, tattered bag, Menachem Eini is holding.
	...

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