Thousands of haredi residents of London, England, gathered outside the Israeli Embassy on Thursday to protest the conscription bill that is currently being discussed in the Knesset committees.
The demonstration was unprecedented in its size compared to past haredi rallies in the city, with many Hassidic communities that have not participated in the past changing course and attending. 70 buses carrying protesters came from the heavily haredi neighborhood of Stamford Hill in Hackney.
Participating in the demonstration were members of Satmar, Ger, Belz, Viznitz, and other Hassidic courts, led by rabbis who called on their flocks to attend.
Standing on two sides of the road, without blocking traffic, demonstrators chanted "Israeli government, shame on you!" in English.
Rabbi Moshe Menachem Weiss, the rabbi of the Satmar community in London, recounted a meeting with a haredi driver in Israel who is classified as a draft evader.
"I asked him why he didn't enlist, since he doesn't study in a yeshiva. He answered me: 'I'd rather they take me to prison.' I can't keep the Torah and mitzvahs in the military like I try to do now. I know that will return as a total gentile."
Other rabbis spoke in their addresses at the rally about the arrests of men in the middle of the night, including orphans during the mourning period, and claimed that young haredim live in fear of arrests.