Israel Police and haredim
Israel Police and haredimYonatan Sindel/ Flash 90

The extremist Yerushalmi Faction (Jerusalem Faction) vowed to block major thoroughfares on Monday after a haredi yeshiva student was arrested for draft dodging.

Sources within the radical group that they will block the entrance to Bnei Brak on Monday starting from 4 PM after a yeshiva student was nabbed by military police earlier for failing to turn up at the recruitment office in order to accept his draft deferment.

"The haredi public will not cooperate in any way with the decrees of destruction and destruction on the world of the Torah," says the Committee for Saving the World of Torah, which represents the faction.

"Yeshiva students will continue to not attend the recruitment offices as long as the arrangement of exempting all Torah scholars from enlistment in the IDF has not been restored. The Haredi public will not lend a hand to the uprooting of a student."

The Jerusalem Faction, which was founded by the late Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, has demanded the IDF issue blanket exemptions to all haredi men, and has rejected the present system, under which full-time yeshiva students are granted draft deferments, renewable each year.

By law, every Jewish Israeli must register for the draft before the age of 18. Anyone who brings a letter from his yeshiva head is given an automatic deferment for as long as he remains in yeshiva. However, those belonging to the Jerusalem Faction refuse to register, and therefore do not receive their legal deferments, placing them at risk of being arrested for draft-dodging.