Israel can honor learning without excusing non-service

I write this not as a military expert or a politician, but as a new Israeli citizen — and as a father whose daughter was murdered in Israel. That gives me no special wisdom. It does, however, mean that questions of shared burden and national responsibility are not abstractions to me.

I did not grow up in Israel. My connection to it was forged through loss when my daughter was murdered there while a student at Midreshet Nishmat. A quarter-century later, I chose to make aliyah and to bind my future to the fate of this country. That does not give me special insight into policy, but it does mean that questions of duty, sacrifice, and belonging are not theoretical to me.

When some young Israelis are sent into danger and others are told they may stand aside entirely, the issue is no longer only legal or political. It is moral.

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This is why the debate over charedi service should not be framed as Torah versus the state. It should be framed as a test of whether Israel can honor genuine Torah learning while still insisting that every able citizen make a meaningful contribution to the country’s survival.

The exemption for yeshiva students was originally meant to protect a small cadre of serious scholars. Over time, it has expanded into a mass category that includes many young men who are not full-time learners in any meaningful sense. What began as a narrow accommodation has become a broad shelter from any form of national obligation.

That shift harms both sides of the social contract. It weakens the IDF at a time of prolonged war, and it undermines the moral standing of Torah study by tying it to a system that increasingly looks like avoidance rather than devotion. A community that believes Torah protects the Jewish people should not want its banner used to excuse those who are not truly engaged in that sacred task.

The solution is not to draft every yeshiva student and dismantle the world of Torah learning. Nor is it to preserve a blanket exemption that no longer reflects reality. The solution is to restore the original distinction: protect the truly serious students — and require meaningful service from those who are not.

That service should not be limited to the battlefield. Israel already has a functioning national-service framework, widely used by religious women, that enables participants to serve in hospitals, emergency response units, special-education programs, welfare institutions, and civil-defense roles. This model proves an important point: service to the state does not require abandoning religious observance or communal identity.

There is no reason this framework cannot be expanded to include men who are not engaged in serious Torah study. Those able to serve in the IDF should be encouraged to do so, particularly in units adapted to religious needs. Those better suited elsewhere should be required to perform full-time national service under strict standards of accountability.

What must end is the category of “no service at all.” A system that asks some young Israelis to risk their lives while asking nothing of others corrodes national unity and undermines respect for both the army and the yeshiva. Contribution need not look the same for everyone — but it must exist for everyone.

Critics will ask who decides who is a “serious” Torah student. The answer cannot be political bargaining. It must rest on objective standards: attendance, study requirements, institutional certification, and periodic review. Exemptions should be limited in number and tied to performance, not to blanket enrollment. If Torah learning is sacred, it should not be protected by a system that cannot distinguish between commitment and convenience.

Others warn that compulsory service will become a tool of cultural coercion. That concern deserves to be addressed. National service must be designed with clear religious safeguards: appropriate environments, respect for halachic norms, and placement in institutions compatible with community values. Service should strengthen identity, not erase it.

There is also the danger that national service will become symbolic rather than substantive. That risk is real. Which is why service must be full-time, supervised, and limited to approved roles with measurable impact. Hospitals, emergency services, elder care, special-needs education, and civil defense are not make-work programs. They are national necessities. Israel will always need both soldiers and scholars. But a society at war cannot sustain a system that treats contribution as optional for entire communities. Nor can the Torah world afford to anchor its moral standing in a loophole that shelters those who are not truly learning.

I do not claim authority over Israeli policy. I do claim a stake in the kind of country Israel becomes. A nation built on covenant cannot survive on exemption alone. It must be built on shared responsibility.

Protect the true learners. But require service from those who are not. Not to punish, not to assimilate, and not to provoke — but to affirm that belonging to Israel means carrying part of its burden.

That is not a threat to Torah. It is a way to preserve its honor in a society that must defend both its spirit and its people.

Stephen M. Flatow of Long Branch, formerly of West Orange, is an attorney and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is the author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror “(now available in an expanded paperback edition on Amazon) and is the president of the Religious Zionists of America-Mizrachi.