🚨 Haredis protest IDF draft, laying down in the streets, setting dumpster alight

Over 100 ultra-Orthodox Jews blocked a road outside a military recruitment office in Jerusalem Wednesday, laying down in the street, blocking a road and setting a garbage bin on fire.

Police deployed an armored truck armed with a plow to move the flaming dumpster, and threatened protesters with skunk spray – a non-lethal malodorant used by the IDF for crowd control.

📑 The Times of Israel reported that the men chanted slogans and sang songs to indicate that they “would rather die than enlist in the Israel Defense Forces,” and spread flyers accusing Netanyahu coalition party Shas of “selling them out” by approving the draft for Haredim.

A separate, smaller protest took place at the Bakum IDF Induction Center outside Tel Aviv. Police dragged and pushed protesters off the road at that location, with some running back into the street and lying down again.

Israel’s Haredi community broadly rejects military service, giving priority to their religious studies.

✡️ Some also reject Zionism and the idea of the State of Israel, believing a true Jewish state can only be established after the coming of the Messiah.