A 9-justice panel of the High Court of Justice will on Sunday (June 7) convene to hear the Movement for Quality Government’s petition pertaining to the Tal Law, the law that permits yeshiva seminary students to push off enlistment into the IDF. Compelling the hearing is the Knesset decision of two years ago which extends the law for an additional five years.

The judges are being called upon to decide if the law’s intent is being actualized, facilitating the integration of chareidim into mainstream society. The law permits students to declare they are learning fulltime, thereby delaying military service until age 23.

In the hearing three years ago, court president, Justice Dorit Beinish was extremely critical over the foot-dragging, insisting it was taking too long to implement the law. The state explained that such a transition does not occur overnight, explaining that a number of years ago, community service was a dream yet today, it exists in reality, assuring the court that this too would come in time, “not a number of weeks, but years”.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)