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A gathering political storm over enlisting Haredi men into the Israeli army is threatening to undermine the governing coalition and splitting the state.

Public opinion on the issue has undergone a sea change in Israel following two years of conflict, and this is now arguably the most volatile political risk facing the Prime Minister.

The Judicial Conflict

Lawmakers are now debating a piece of legislation to abolish the deferment given to yeshiva scholars enrolled in Torah study, created when the modern Israel was established in 1948.

The deferment was struck down by Israel's High Court of Justice almost 20 years ago. Stopgap solutions to extend it were finally concluded by the bench last year, forcing the administration to start enlisting the Haredi sector.

Approximately 24,000 enlistment orders were issued last year, but only around 1,200 ultra-Orthodox - or Haredi - draftees enlisted, according to army data shared with lawmakers.

Tensions Erupt Onto the Streets

Tensions are erupting onto the public squares, with elected officials now deliberating a new draft bill to compel Haredi males into national service together with other secular Israelis.

A pair of ultra-Orthodox lawmakers were targeted this month by some extreme ultra-Orthodox protesters, who are enraged with the Knesset's deliberations of the draft legislation.

In a recent incident, a specialized force had to extract enforcement personnel who were targeted by a sizeable mob of ultra-Orthodox protesters as they sought to apprehend a man avoiding service.

These arrests have sparked the creation of a new alert system named "Emergency Alert" to send out instant alerts through Haredi neighborhoods and call out demonstrators to stop detentions from taking place.

"We're a Jewish country," said one protester. "You can't fight against religious practice in a Jewish country. It is a contradiction."

An Environment Apart

Yet the transformations affecting Israel have not yet breached the confines of the Torah academy in a Haredi stronghold, an Haredi enclave on the fringes of Tel Aviv.

Inside the classroom, young students study together to discuss Jewish law, their vividly colored notepads contrasting with the seats of formal attire and small black kippahs.

"Visit in the early hours, and you will see many of the students are studying Torah," the dean of the academy, Rabbi Tzemach Mazuz, noted. "Via dedicated learning, we protect the military personnel wherever they are. This constitutes our service."

The community holds that constant study and spiritual pursuit defend Israel's armed forces, and are as essential to its defense as its conventional forces. That belief was acknowledged by the nation's leaders in the earlier decades, he said, but he acknowledged that the nation is evolving.

Rising Societal Anger

This religious sector has grown substantially its share of Israel's population over the since the state's founding, and now represents around one in seven. An exemption that started as an exemption for a few hundred Torah scholars evolved into, by the onset of the recent conflict, a body of tens of thousands of men left out of the draft.

Surveys show support for ultra-Orthodox conscription is growing. A survey in July found that an overwhelming percentage of secular and traditional Jews - even almost three-quarters in the Prime Minister's political base - backed sanctions for those who refused a enlistment summons, with a solid consensus in favor of cutting state subsidies, passports, or the right to vote.

"I feel there are individuals who live in this nation without giving anything back," one military member in Tel Aviv said.

"It is my belief, no matter how devout, [it] should be an reason not to perform service your nation," said Gabby. "If you're born here, I find it somewhat unreasonable that you want to opt out just to engage in religious study all day."

Perspectives from the Heart of the Community

Support for ending the exemption is also coming from observant Jews outside the Haredi community, like one local resident, who lives near the yeshiva and notes observant but non-Haredi Jews who do perform national service while also studying Torah.

"I'm very angry that this community don't enlist," she said. "This creates inequality. I too follow the Jewish law, but there's a proverb in Jewish tradition - 'The Book and the Sword' – it represents the scripture and the defense together. That is the path, until the messianic era."

She runs a local tribute in Bnei Brak to local soldiers, both observant and non-observant, who were fallen in war. Lines of images {