Shas chairman Arye Deri’s decision to push forward legislation known as Basic Law: Torah Study is the quintessential example of being tone-deaf.
At a time when soldiers are being killed in southern Lebanon by explosive drones, when troops continue risking life and limb in Gaza, when reservists are serving their fourth, fifth, and sixth rounds of duty, and when thousands of families live with the constant anxiety of a simple knock on the front door, Deri chose this moment to advance a Basic Law designed to anchor the status of yeshiva students in Israeli law.
The original version of the bill included a provision critics said equated long-term Torah study with military service and placed the two on the same plane vis-à-vis rights and benefits from the state. That provision was revised following discussions on Tuesday morning in the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, which determines the coalition’s position on proposed bills.
The brazenness was breathtaking.
In December 2024, columnist Kalman Liebskind wrote that Israeli society was divided, but not in the way traditionally assumed: Right and Left, religious and secular, supporters and opponents of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Rather, it was between those who go to sleep every night worried about sons, husbands, brothers, and fathers serving on the front lines and those who do not live with that fear. Only someone insulated from that fear could imagine this legislation would be received as anything other than a slap in the face.
More than that, equating a day spent in a study hall with the ability to return home safely each night with sleeping in a commandeered house in southern Lebanon – afraid to step outside in daylight because of drones overhead, unable to shower or use basic facilities, and separated from one’s family for months at a time – risks undermining the morale of those making those sacrifices.
Deri's tone-deaf response to Israel's multifront wars
These are people giving up comfort, safety, and family life and risking their lives to defend the collective.
Making matters worse, Deri announced his intention to advance the bill while visiting on Sunday, haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft evaders who had been arrested and jailed for ignoring draft orders.
The setting was almost as significant as the legislation itself.
As Israel continues fighting on multiple fronts, Deri chose to stand alongside draft evaders and announce a legislative initiative designed to strengthen the legal standing of those who do not serve.
The problem is not merely the substance of the bill. It is what the bill reflects: a striking lack of humility and appreciation.
One can believe that Torah study contributes profoundly to the Jewish people and to the State of Israel. Many Israelis do.
But even those who see Torah study as essential should be capable of acknowledging the unique burden borne by those who leave their families, careers, studies, and personal freedom behind to defend the country, and that all-day yeshiva study is not a comparable type of sacrifice.
Even Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party concluded that the bill, in its original form, went too far.
Smotrich, because of a desire to keep this government intact, has been fuzzy on the whole haredi conscription issue, something that has alienated many in the religious-Zionist community, which is disproportionately represented in the IDF’s combat units and among the more than 950 soldiers who have fallen since the October 7 massacre and which understands the value of Torah learning.
Yet even for the Religious Zionist Party, the idea of equating the status and conditions of those who do not serve with those who do proved unacceptable. The party said it would only support a version of the bill recognizing Torah study as a foundational value of the state that removes language comparing yeshiva students to soldiers and reservists.
Faced with that opposition, cabinet secretary Yossi Fuchs said the Ministerial Committee for Legislation had decided that the controversial equivalence clause would eventually be removed. Shas MK Yoav Ben-Tzur similarly said the wording would be altered so that no comparison would be made between yeshiva students and soldiers.
While an improvement, this does not alter the legislation’s broader significance, which is expected to come before the Knesset Plenum on Wednesday for a preliminary reading.
Why is Deri pushing for the Torah study bill to be a Basic Law?
The removal of the comparison clause does not end the controversy, because the legislation’s real significance lies not in the specific wording equating Torah study with military service. The real significance is that it is being advanced as a Basic Law.
This matters enormously, because in Israel’s legal system, Basic Laws have a quasi-constitutional status. They are not ordinary legislation. They form the foundation upon which other laws are interpreted and judged.
By enshrining Torah study as a constitutional value, the coalition would fundamentally alter the legal framework governing future debates over haredi conscription.
Without the original equivalence clause, the law can no longer claim that a yeshiva student is doing the same thing as a soldier. But it would still instruct the courts that Torah study is a supreme national value deserving constitutional protection.
That changes the legal balance. Future courts reviewing draft-exemption legislation would no longer be weighing equality alone and whether granting exemptions is discriminatory against those who do not receive them. The court would instead be required to balance equality against an explicitly protected constitutional value: the state’s recognition of Torah study as a foundational national interest.
In practical terms, the legislation would make it far more difficult for the judiciary to invalidate future arrangements granting deferments or exemptions to yeshiva students.
The coalition understands this. Which is precisely why Shas and United Torah Judaism are advocating the bill.
The goal is not merely symbolic recognition of Torah study. The goal is to create a constitutional anchor that would make future judicial intervention regarding draft exemptions far more difficult.
On the very same day that this law was discussed, another bill restoring daycare subsidies to families whose husbands are not serving in the military, though legally obligated to do so, passed through committee and was readied for a first reading.
The two bills tell a larger story: One seeks to restore benefits lost after the High Court of Justice ruled there was no longer a legal basis for blanket draft exemptions; the other seeks to create a constitutional framework that would make future judicial intervention far more difficult.
Taken together, they represent an effort not merely to preserve the existing arrangement but to entrench it.
To do all this precisely now shows a breathless degree of disconnection from the mood of the nation, or at least from the country’s non-haredi Jewish majority.