Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fragile governing coalition was dealt another setback Wednesday after back-to-back rulings by the Supreme Court stunned the country’s Orthodox Jewish establishment.

In one far-reaching decision, the court overturned the law granting ultra-Orthodox Jewish men an exemption from compulsory military service while they are studying at a yeshiva, or religious seminary. The ruling is set to take effect within a year.

In an unrelated decision, the court dealt the state rabbinate, Israel’s guiding religious authority, a significant blow by ruling that it does not have a monopoly on granting kosher certification to restaurants and other public establishments. That handed a victory to independent, more liberal religious entities that have increasingly clamored for the same right to oversee dietary certification.

Netanyahu, who was in Colombia and Mexico as part of a 10-day trip abroad, did not immediately respond to the bombshell rulings, handed down Tuesday. But they sent seismic shocks through his coalition, which includes Orthodox parties for whom few issues are more important than the draft exemption.

Advertisement

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos attend a ceremony to welcome the Israeli leader at the Nariño palace in Bogota on Sept. 13, 2017. (Raul Arboleda / AFP/Getty Images)

The question of drafting ultra-Orthodox young men who are studying in religious seminaries has vexed Israel for decades. A version of the exemption law has been on the books since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, but it has increasingly rankled the non-Orthodox majority, whose children are subject to a military draft at age 18, thus delaying the start of their college education by three years.

Eight out of nine justices agreed with the petitioners, the Movement for Quality Government, an independent good-government organization, that “the law perpetuates inequality between secular youths who are required to enlist in the army and religious youth who are exempt.”

In the past, ultra-Orthodox communities have responded to threats against the draft exemption with riots and attacks against the police, and they held a large protest in Jerusalem on Wednesday.

Advertisement

The matter of kosher certification has long rankled Israelis, most of whom do not adhere to religious law. Opening a non-kosher restaurant in Israel is simple, but anyone hoping to cater to an observant public has until now had to turn to the rabbinate, whose employees are routinely accused of corruption and mafia-like threats against establishments unwilling to pay the arbitrary amount of money demanded for each certificate.

The liberal newspaper Haaretz celebrated the decision by running the story of a pizzeria owner who was targeted by rabbinic employees. The headline: “A slice of pluralism.”

In an indication of the trouble Netanyahu faces when he returns, two of his senior Cabinet members reacted with radically different takes regarding the ruling on the draft. Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, who leads the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, said he had the prime minister’s agreement to present parliament with a law that would bypass the Supreme Court twin decisions. He described the prospective bill as “a new, strong law … with an ironclad clause so that the High Court won’t be able to meddle.”

In a sharp rebuttal, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who heads the right-wing but secular Jewish Home party, said he planned to propose a new law imposing mandatory service on ultra-Orthodox Jews as well as Arab citizens of Israel who have also been exempt. “Those who refuse to serve should know that it has a price — and it applies to everyone,” he said at a Jerusalem gathering for party members.

Netanyahu — already threatened by a growing corruption investigation — can ill-afford a split in his coalition. He commands a bare majority of 61 out of 120 seats in parliament.

But nothing has exposed or engaged Israel’s secular-religious divide like the case of Yigal Guetta, a member of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, from Deri’s ultra-Orthodox party. In a radio interview Sunday, Guetta revealed that he had attended the same-sex wedding of his nephew two years ago. On Wednesday, after receiving a letter from five prominent rabbis calling for his dismissal, he resigned his seat.

Guetta, who described same-sex marriage as “an abomination,” explained that he went to the wedding out of family duty and the desire to please his sister and nephew.

“My nephew, Yam, called me to say he was getting married. He said, ‘I’m gay and getting married to a man in two months.’ I told my family we had to go,” he said in an interview. “We all went, the entire family.”

Advertisement

Guetta’s very human predicament, in which he was caught between strident religious authorities and familial love, struck a chord among Israelis, who have been riveted. Ultra-Orthodox politicians eager to criticize the justices seem stymied by Guetta’s dilemma.

Speaking on a radio news program, the minister for religious services, David Azoulay, also from the Shas party, declined to censure his colleague, mumbling through a response.

“I’m very sorry he’s resigning,” he said. “I haven’t seen the letter. I don’t know the rabbis. I’ve talked enough.” Attempting to pivot, he added, “To my great regret, the Supreme Court has made a big mistake.”

But it was a traditional homemaker, Suzy Ben Zvi, Guetta’s sister and the mother of the groom, who pointedly exposed the electoral high-wire act of politicians adopting strict rabbinic views.

“I’m not going to vote for Shas,” she told Israel’s Army Radio. “I’ve always voted for them. It’s one thing to stand up for principles, but what is this? I have 10 kids and I love them each. I don’t ask them who they are bringing home, if it’s an Ashkenazi or a European or whatever. I want my kids to bring home good people, that’s all I ask. It is none of their business.”

“That’s a mom,” reacted Kobi Sudri, the radio host.

ALSO

Sebastian Gorka says the GOP didn’t win last November, Donald Trump did

Advertisement

Site targeted by Israeli airstrike in Syria may have produced chemical weapons

Vast new intelligence haul fuels next phase of fight against Islamic State

Tarnopolsky is a special correspondent.</s>JERUSALEM, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Israel's Supreme Court on Tuesday cancelled legislation exempting Jewish religious seminary students from military service, angering ultra-Orthodox lawmakers who could destabilise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition.

A panel of nine justices ruled that parts of the conscription law that exempt seminary students from service were "unreasonable and unconstitutional". It gave the government a year to resolve the matter.

For decades, the exemption from military service on religious grounds for seminary students has caused friction in Israeli society, where most Jewish men and women are called up for military service when they turn 18.

The ultra-Orthodox say that their study of the Torah is vital for the continued survival of the Jewish people and also fear that young men serving in the army would come into contact with women and with less pious elements in society.

Several hundred ultra-Orthodox men have, however, enlisted in special units that cater to their religious needs.

Legislation was enacted in 2014 to replace arrangements that had previously expired. It was prompted by then-coalition member Yair Lapid's secular, centrist Yesh Atid party which ran on a platform of "sharing the national burden".

That legislation angered ultra-Orthodox parties who rejoined Netanyahu's subsequent government in 2015 when Lapid's party went into opposition and they managed to effect a watering down of the law.

Eight of the nine justices ruled the law should be scrapped and Supreme Court President Miriam Naor, wrote that the most recent arrangement that was made to appease the ultra-Orthodox parties "deeply harms equality in a way that damages the constitutional right to human dignity."

Since Israel's founding in 1948, ultra-Orthodox politicians have campaigned vigorously against the conscription of members of their community, who make up about 10 percent of Israel´s population of 9 million.

Netanyahu's government, which controls 67 of the Knesset's 120 seats, includes both ultra-Orthodox parties, but two other influential factions oppose a further relaxation of the legislation against conscription.

Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, the leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, said in response to the ruling that the justices were "completely detached from our heritage and tradition and from the people."

He encouraged seminary students to continue their Bible studies and said: "Do not despair, continue to study the Torah, we will stand firm and will do everything to fix this situation."

Lapid, whom opinion polls have shown to be a possible challenger to Netanyahu in future elections, convened a news conference to praise the court's decision, saying it had delivered a verdict that would force equality among communities.

"This is why we have come to politics. Conscription for everybody, work for everybody. Benjamin Netanyahu can no longer continue to wriggle out all the time. Military conscription is for everybody, not only for the suckers who don't have a party in his coalition," Lapid added. (Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Hugh Lawson)</s>The court decision was reached by eight members of a nine-judge panel sitting as the High Court of Justice, with one member dissenting. It presents a new challenge for the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, already beleaguered by corruption investigations and reliant on the support of his ultra-Orthodox coalition partners.

Ultra-Orthodox politicians strongly denounced the ruling and vowed to fight it, but given the yearlong time frame for amending the law, the stability of the governing coalition did not appear to be in imminent danger.

“Those same Torah sons who chose to dedicate their lives to Torah study will continue to study Torah here in the land of Israel, the holy land,” said Aryeh Deri, the interior minister and the leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, in remarks after the ruling. “No force in the world will stop them,” he said, adding that the court has proved itself “totally disconnected from our heritage and tradition and from our people.”

Mr. Lapid of Yesh Atid (Hebrew for There Is a Future), speaking after the decision was announced, said: “Today we started to turn the ship toward sanity and values. That’s why we are in politics.”

Mr. Netanyahu, he added, could not continue to wriggle out of making a decision. The draft, he said, is “for everyone, not just for suckers who don’t have a party in the coalition. We’re done being suckers. The court decided that we will not have first- and second-class citizens in Israel.”

The policy of open-ended deferment dates to 1949 when Israel’s founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, exempted 400 religious students from military service in an effort to restore the tradition of yeshiva scholarship, which had been nearly destroyed during the Holocaust. The issue has since become tendentious, with the number of those who have been exempted by now amounting to tens of thousands.

Those who support wholesale deferment and exemption for Torah students in seminaries argue that Israel needs spiritual preservation as much as physical protection. Critics protest that the fast-growing ultra-Orthodox minority, known in Hebrew as Haredim, or those in awe of God, are not contributing enough to the country’s economy or security, leaving others to bear an unfair burden.

Israel’s ultra-Orthodox sector makes up about 10 percent of the population of more than 8.5 million but it is rapidly increasing, with its members typically marrying young and having large families. Worry and anger has been growing among many Israelis who fear that the economy will become unsustainable in the coming decades without radical change, in part because many ultra-Orthodox men prefer full time Torah study over work and rely on government stipends.

With the ultra-Orthodox parties often serving as coalition kingmakers and serving in most of the governments for more than three decades, they have accrued what many see as disproportionate power, privileges and subsidies.

Far from homogeneous, the Haredi world is made up of different rabbinical courts, and a small but growing number of strictly religious Jews have already been opting for military service or civilian national service as a way of acquiring skills and a path out of poverty and toward integration into the work force. The army has tried to accommodate Haredi recruits. It has even established ultra-Orthodox battalions, allowing those soldiers to combine military service with religious life.

But the more hard-core rabbis, who refuse to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state before the arrival of the Messiah, have resisted change. Ultra-Orthodox soldiers have been harassed and abused in their neighborhoods and stormy street protests have erupted in cases where members of the community who did not qualify for an army exemption, perhaps because they were found to be not properly engaged in yeshiva study, have been detained for draft dodging. Religious women are exempted from army service because they adhere to strict rules of modesty. Israel’s Arab minority is also largely exempted.

Tuesday’s ruling was just the latest twist in a long political and legal saga. In 2012, the Supreme Court invalidated a law that had been in force for a decade regulating the exemption from military service for ultra-Orthodox Jews. The law was supposed to encourage ultra-Orthodox enlistment without coercion, but it failed to achieve results and the court deemed it unconstitutional.

After the 2013 elections, Yesh Atid entered the coalition as the second-largest party after Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud. The ultra-Orthodox parties were excluded. Mr. Lapid advanced legislation to phase out wholesale exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox, instituting annual quotas for the enlistment of yeshiva graduates and sanctions for those who evaded the draft. It was supposed to take effect at the end of this year.

But after the 2015 elections, Yesh Atid was out of the government and the ultra-Orthodox parties were back in. Under the new coalition agreements, the government amended the legislation, canceling the provisions for sanctions, delaying putting it into effect for years and watering it down in other ways that essentially neutralized it.</s>Israel’s Supreme Court has annulled a law which exempted ultra-Orthodox Jews from being conscripted into the army, drawing furious responses from community leaders and some politicians.

The decision to repeal the law was made Tuesday. Eight of the nine-judge panel ruled that parts of the conscription law were “unreasonable and unconstitutional.”

The measure will take effect within a year.

Members of the ultra-Orthodox community – unlike secular Jews who are drafted into the military at the age of 18 – are largely exempt from being drafted into the country's armed forces.

The exemption stems from 1949, when then defense minister David Ben-Gurion, who was also the country's first prime minister, allowed 400 students to be excluded from military service on the grounds that “their studies are their craft.”

The ruling has angered ultra-Orthodox politicians who see the study of the Torah as fundamental to the continued survival of the Jewish people.

United Torah Judaism chairman and Health Minister, Ya’acov Litzman, said the decision was “the worst and most wretched decision in the history of terrible decisions in the Jewish world.” He added the judges were “harming the most cherished aspect of haredi Judaism, which is the holy yeshiva students whose Torah is their profession,”according to the Jerusalem Post.

In 2014, the secular Yesh Atid party proposed legislation to replace previously made arrangements on conscription which had expired. However in 2015, when both ultra-Orthodox parties rejoined the government, and Yesh Atid went into opposition, the ultra-Orthodox parties managed to dilute this law.

Supreme Court President Miriam Naor, the judge heading up the panel, wrote: “The hope of meeting the enlistment targets set by existing the law are growing less and likely every year. As a result, the law’s goal of reducing inequality in the burden of military service is not being met,” Haaretz reports.

Opposition politicians praised the judges for their decision.

“This is why we have come to politics. Conscription for everybody, work for everybody. Benjamin Netanyahu can no longer continue to wriggle out all the time. Military conscription is for everybody, not only for the suckers who don’t have a party in his coalition,” Yair lapid, chairman of the Yesh Atid party said.</s>An Israeli soldier, a member of an aid delegation, prepares to board a flight to Nepal at Ben Gurion international airport near Tel Aviv, Israel April 26, 2015. — Reuters picTEL AVIV, Sept 13 — The Israeli Supreme Court yesterday struck down military draft exemptions for Jewish seminary students, enraging the small but powerful ultra-Orthodox community.

Court documents seen by AFP showed a panel of nine justices agreed that a 2015 amendment to the law on military service treated the students more generously than their secular compatriots.

“All the justices ruled that the new draft arrangement violates equality,” the decision read.

It said an eight-to-one majority went a step further, ruling that it must be struck from the law books.

Most Jewish Israelis are obliged to enlist, usually at the age of 18, with men serving for two years and eight months and women for two years.

Many continue to be called up for periodic periods of reserve duty into their 40s.

“The majority justices ruled that the annulment of the arrangement would take effect only a year from the date of the ruling, in order to enable the arrangement to be implemented,” an official summary of the judgement said.

The year of grace gave the military and other authorities time to organise for an enlarged draft.

It also gave politicians a chance to find an alternative formula which would be acceptable both to the court and the ultra-Orthodox political parties, whose support is vital for the government’s slender parliamentary majority.

Ultra-Orthodox leaders raged against yesterday’s decision but did not threaten the stability of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, currently halfway through its four-year term.

“It’s a miserable ruling,” lawmaker Menachem Eliezer Moses, of the United Torah Judaism party, told state-owned Channel One TV.

“We are certainly not going to dismantle the government,” he added. “There are still two years to elections. We shall change the law.”

Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, took a similar line.

“The Supreme Court is totally cut off from our (Jewish) heritage and tradition,” he said on Twitter.

“We will act with all our might to amend the law to allow the continuation of the existing arrangement.”

Ultra-Orthodox Jews represent about 10 per cent of the Israeli population and live by a strict interpretation of Jewish laws.

There have been large and heated ultra-Orthodox protests against the draft, which many of them view as a source of temptation for young people taken out of the cloistered world of prayer and religious study.

In March thousands took to the streets and dozens have been arrested on public disorder offences in the past few months. — AFP</s>JERUSALEM - An Israeli Supreme Court decision that could force ultra-Orthodox citizens to serve in the army like their secular counterparts sparked anger from religious leaders Wednesday and reignited a sensitive political debate.

Tuesday's decision strikes down a law exempting ultra-Orthodox men engaged in religious study from military service, saying it undermines equality. The decision raises the possibility that they could be forced into service, a highly contentious proposition with political implications.

The court however suspended its decision for one year to allow for preparations for the new arrangement - which also provides the government with the opportunity to pass a new law.

Ultra-Orthodox political parties and their allies in government are likely to draft new legislation that could seek to override the court ruling and keep the exemption in place.

The ultra-Orthodox parties form a key part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition and have often acted as kingmakers in Israeli politics. Around 10 percent of Israel's eight million people are considered ultra-Orthodox.

Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, whose ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism alliance is part of Netanyahu's coalition, accused the court of seeking to topple the coalition.

He called the ruling "one of the worst, most wretched judicial decrees that will enter the long history of persecutions of the Jewish people," ultra-Orthodox newspaper Hamodia reported.

Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, said "the Supreme Court is totally cut off from our (Jewish) heritage and tradition."

The issue is part of a decades-old debate over whether young ultra-Orthodox men studying at seminaries should perform mandatory military service like the rest of Israel's Jewish population.

After reaching age 18, men must serve two years and eight months, while women must serve for two.

In 2015, lawmakers passed legislation extending their exemption from duty, reversing a law passed the previous year that would have seen it expire.

Israel's first prime minister David Ben-Gurion initially granted the exemption in the early years of the state founded in 1948, which at the time involved only 400 students.

The ultra-Orthodox are however today among the fastest-growing segments of Israel's population, with projections that they could account for one-quarter of the total by 2050.

They oppose serving for a variety of reasons, with the most extreme believing a Jewish state is not allowed before the coming of the Messiah.

Others argue that yeshiva study is just as important to Israel as military service or that ultra-Orthodox soldiers would be confronted with salty language and other unreligious behaviour.

Yair Lapid, the head of the centrist Yesh Atid party who pushed to remove the exemption as part of the previous government in 2014, welcomed the court's decision as a victory of "values."

Lapid, now in the opposition, also criticised Netanyahu, saying the prime minister could not continue to avoid the issue and that "conscription is for everyone, not just for the suckers who don't have a party in the coalition."

Israeli media reported that the ultra-Orthodox parties were to meet on Wednesday to plot a way forward after the decision.

But many analysts said it was unlikely to provoke a coalition crisis, with Netanyahu having sided with the ultra-Orthodox parties on a range of issues recently.

A decision in June to scrap a deal to allow women and men to pray together at the Western Wall provoked heavy criticism of Netanyahu, who was accused of abandoning reform efforts for political gain.

The ultra-Orthodox parties bitterly opposed the deal for mixed-gender prayer at the site in Jerusalem, the holiest where Jews are allowed to pray, since it violates their strict interpretation of Jewish law.

"Let's put matters in proportion. This is not a political earthquake, not at this stage," political columnist Ben Caspit wrote in Israel's Maariv newspaper.

"Almost nobody has the energy for elections at the moment."</s>An ultra-Orthodox Jewish lawmaker from Israel's Shas party has resigned from parliament after he was criticized for participating in a gay wedding.

Yigal Guetta announced his resignation Wednesday. In a recent radio interview, the 51-year-old lawmaker disclosed that he had a gay nephew who invited him to his wedding. Guetta said he attended out of respect for his relative and despite his own reservations.

The disclosure caused outrage in the ultra-Orthodox community, where homosexuality is taboo, and led to calls from rabbis for the lawmaker to step down.

Shas chairman Arieh Deri said he respected Guetta's decision to resign.

Israel accepts gays serving openly in its military and Tel Aviv is a popular gay-friendly destination. But among the country's conservative ultra-Orthodox community, homosexuality is considered a sin and publicly shunned.</s>Photographer Benyamin Reich explores queer culture and the homo-erotic roots of Judaism

It takes a unique strand of heroism to challenge the sanctity of religion in the pursuit of queerness. For Berlin-based photographer, Benyamin Reich, it’s the experience of growing up gay in one of Israel’s strictest, ultra-Orthodox cities that has informed his lens. Casting a spotlight of queerness and masculinity on Judaism across Israel, Poland, Germany, and Switzerland in order to progress attitudes towards sexuality in the Jewish community. Born into a rabbinical family in Bnei Brak – the world’s centre of ultra-orthodox Judaism – Reich says, “Bnei Brak is a black and white city meaning the world is in black and white: men wear white shirts on top, black pants on the bottom, and that’s all you see. There was not a lot of colour in my childhood. And as a kid with an artistic, aesthetic point of view, it felt wrong, like something was missing. From my childhood onwards, it (was) all about bringing aesthetic back to my life.” “Entrenched (Haredi Jewish) traditions require men to become patriarchal providers through an arranged marriage at around 18-years-of-age, to produce families of over 9-13 kids and to pursue life as a Torah scholar” According to the photographer, life in Bnei Brak was comparable to time in the army. The city is comprised of 85 per cent Haredi Jews and enforces strict laws, dress codes and encourages a lack of individual identity, all in the name of Judaism. Entrenched traditions require men to become patriarchal providers through an arranged marriage at around 18-years-of-age, to produce families of over 9-13 kids and to pursue life as a Torah scholar. So how does one come to terms with their sexuality in a place where the expression and language of sexual liberation don't exist? “I think this is an issue that has stayed with me forever,” reveals Reich. “I was always told, ‘It’s your bad urge and you have to fight it. you are straight, God made you straight you have to fight it’. I didn’t tell anyone. I tried to but I couldn’t. So I would spend a lot of my time in my studies trying to find stories that depicted my feelings in the holy books – I tried to find something to reference myself by.” When Reich was unable to find them, he left Bnei Brak for École Des Beaux-Arts in Paris to pursue the only medium that he felt could release his oppression – photography. “My work is about escaping how hard it was. It’s a release of what I was holding when I was younger by asking important questions that return to the source of my life as a teenager in the Yeshiva school with thoughts that are ‘impure’.” This journey to reclaim a lost identity has informed his work for over 15 years now. Through a blend of Baroque-style colours of rich browns and golds, and contemporary portraiture, Reich’s work explores a coming-of-age masculinity and the homo-erotic roots of some of Judaism’s most incubated, almost secret, societies.

He explains: “My imagery is trying to make terms with Jewish forbidden law. It brings these two worlds together. I don’t reject traditional Judaism; I just add visions of homoeroticisms that exist in a secret way to create a new and needed language. I pronounce it visually so that way these scenes become reality and can be seen.” Reich’s works are the antithesis to traditional dictations of Jewish masculinity. In their frames, we see male-only baths, Jewish ritual objects as stylised sex tools and challenges towards the attitudes of how a Jewish man should look or act. “On one side of Judaism, you have the new Jew: Jew of the army, Jew of the masses – it has to do with Zionism and with Israel as a country of power. But I rather see it with a pre-modern eye: The masculine Jew is very weak and I glorify the image of the old Jew. It’s the Jew that puts his mind in books, in intellectualism, the scholar Jew which is very soft, very gentle.” “I was always told, ‘It’s your bad urge and you have to fight it. you are straight, God made you straight you have to fight it’” — Benyamin Reich

Male companionship is another strong focus of Reich’s works. In ultra-Orthodox societies like Bnei Brak, boys each have a male friend for their Torah studies they spend most of the day with, called Havruta. “It’s a very strong, intellectual friendship because they learn together, but it’s also very homoerotic because its only men allowed”, says Reich. “They are both at the age where sexuality starts to become prevalent and influences their behaviour very strongly. Unfortunately, this kind of intellectual intimacy is lost to the modern world, although I think you can find it in earlier non-Jewish societies as well, like ancient Greece. So, it’s this very pure, romantic sense of kinship. There’s this forgotten romanticism in masculinity that fascinates me, so I try to capture it.”

But just how does Reich source his work when queerness is so secret? “Like in every city, there is a queer underground in the ultra-Orthodox society. You see them a lot at the water source just outside Jerusalem where many go for ritual baths. And you can always tell who these people are through one swift contact of the eyes, nothing is said. But I wouldn’t call it homosexuality because this term doesn’t exist in Ultra-Orthodoxy. Its more about teenage urge for warmth and the only thing that’s around is engrained masculinity. In a way it’s like old Arab tradition or in prison, when there is so much masculinity, there is no other way. Some of them are gay, but they are married and will fight it. Its more so homoerotic rather than homosexuality. Which is fascinating too.” What’s most intriguing about Reich is his binding commitment to Judaism. Rather than abandon his faith in critique, Reich commits to bringing religion and queerness together. “In the future, I would be very happy if there would be an ultra-orthodox rabbi who accepted homosexuality, that said you can have a boyfriend but keep it holy. It’s this intersection between Judaism and queerness that I hope for. I hope for elders who will open the bridge for LGBT Ultra-orthodox people to stay religious, to stay traditional but be with a partner whoever it is, that they choose to love and be happy with. I think it will come. And this is what I am trying to make with my images. These images are easier to make, rather than for a rabbi to say. But maybe these images will bring the awareness. When this happens, I’ll be happy.” In the pursuit of progressing Judaism, Reich is starting to explore trans experience in ultra-Orthodox communities. One image (below) features Jewish-American trans activist, Abby Stein, who grew up in one of the world's strictest Hasidic Jewish communities as the direct descendant of Hasidic Judaism's founder Baal Shem Tov. She is the first openly transgender woman to have been ordained by an Orthodox institution.</s>JERUSALEM — Israel's Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a 2015 law that granted exemptions from military service to ultra-Orthodox men, in a move that could re-ignite long-standing tensions between Israel's politically powerful ultra-Orthodox community and the secular Jewish majority.

Most Jewish men are required to serve in the military when they turn 18, but the ultra-Orthodox community has won exemptions, arguing that young men studying in Jewish seminaries serve the nation through study and prayer.

Secular Israelis say the system is unfair. Past attempts to force religious men to enlist have triggered violent protests by members of the ultra-Orthodox community.

The Israeli government moved to reduce exemptions and increase ultra-Orthodox military service in a 2014 law. But a year later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new government, formed with religious allies, canceled those reforms.

In Tuesday's decision, the court ruled overwhelmingly in favor of appeals against the 2015 law, saying it discriminates between the ultra-Orthodox and those required to serve in the military. The court ordered the law's replacement within a year.

Former Finance Minister Yair Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid party, which pushed for greater ultra-Orthodox enlistment, hailed the court's decision, saying that military service "is for everyone and not just for suckers."

"The high court ruled that there are no first class citizens and second class citizens in Israel," he said.

Israeli parliament members from ultra-Orthodox parties fumed at the court's decision.

Interior Minister Aryeh Deri said the decision "proved once again the serious disconnect between the High Court and the Jewish people." He said his religious Shas party would push for legislation that would preserve the status quo.

Meir Porush, a lawmaker with the United Torah Judaism party, said the court's "judicial activism" undermined parliament's legislative authority and was leading the country to "Armageddon."</s>JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s Supreme Court struck down a law that increased the number of draft exemptions for haredi Orthodox yeshiva students.

The legislation, passed two years ago, was “unconstitutional, disproportionate, and harms equality,” the justices wrote in the majority decision, which was backed by eight of the nine members of the court. The law’s stated purpose of reducing the inequality of the burden of military service was not achieved, the justices said.

The court gave the government one year to rework the draft for haredi men.

Among those that welcomed the move was the Yesh Atid party, which has been demanding that the haredim serve in the Israel Defense Forces.

“Values won today, the spirit of IDF won today, our soldiers won today,” Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid said in a news conference Tuesday evening in Tel Aviv. “It’s clear that things can be different. Today we started to turn the ship towards sanity and values. That’s why we are in politics. Everyone serves. Everyone works.”

Arye Deri, the head of the Sephardi Orthodox Shas party and the nation’s interior minister, slammed the ruling, saying the decision “again proves the serious disconnect between the Supreme Court and the Jewish people, who have known through all generations that what holds us together against persecution and decrees was Torah study.”

The legislation was an amendment to the Equal Service Law, which superseded and weakened a law supported by Yesh Atid that would have required more haredi Orthodox men to do their mandatory military service.

The haredi exemptions had been a condition of Shas and the United Torah Judaism party when they agreed to join the government coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud party following national elections in 2015.

The laws were a follow up to the Tal Law, first passed in 2002, which exempted thousands of yeshiva students but did not allow them to work during that time period. The Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional in 2009 and it expired in 2012.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu can’t continue to avoid a decision; the IDF draft is for everyone. Everyone. Not just for suckers who don’t have a party in the coalition,” Lapid said. “We’re done being suckers. The court decided that we will not have first- and second-class citizens in Israel.”

Haredi Jews, as opposed to the modern or “religious Zionist” Orthodox who regularly serve in the IDF, were exempted from military service under agreements that go back to the founding of the state.
The Supreme Court of Israel strikes down the exemption on the conscription of ultra-Orthodox Jews.