Jerusalem Faction

Refusal to cooperate with military recruitment procedures distinguishes the Jerusalem Faction from most Lithuanian and Sephardi Haredi streams, which have supported arrangements allowing yeshiva students to continue studying while reporting to the IDF to declare that commitment.[2] The faction opposes the reporting requirement itself, maintaining that cooperation with the state over conscription could lead to the “complete displacement of the world of Torah.”[2] Under Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, it instructed students not to attend recruitment offices even to obtain a deferment or exemption, leaving those who failed to report liable to arrest as deserters.[4]

The faction developed as a breakaway within Lithuanian Haredi society rather than as a separate community comparable to Eda HaHaredit or Neturei Karta.[3] Its members share family connections, educational institutions, and residential neighborhoods with mainstream Lithuanian Haredim.[3] Its institutional identity nevertheless includes the newspaper HaPeles and the Bnei Torah municipal political party.[5]

The death of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv in 2012 precipitated a contest over leadership of the Lithuanian Haredi community between Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman of Bnei Brak and Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach of Jerusalem.[1] Auerbach and his supporters formed a breakaway grouping after losing that leadership contest.[1] The division also involved contrasting approaches to state institutions: Shteinman accepted reporting to military offices to obtain an exemption, whereas Auerbach opposed even that contact.[1]

Earlier institutional rivalries formed part of the movement’s roots, including a late-1990s leadership dispute at Ponevezh yeshiva in Bnei Brak between the camps of Rabbi Kahaneman and Rabbi Markowitz.[1] The later organizational break reached a political milestone in 2013, when Auerbach’s supporters left Degel HaTorah.[1] Following a struggle over the established newspaper Yated Ne’eman, the breakaway movement established HaPeles, with Nati Grossman creating the paper as its mouthpiece.[5][1]

In the 2013 local elections, Bnei Torah won a small number of municipal council seats in Jerusalem, Modi’in Illit, and Bnei Brak.[5] Separation also developed in educational and social life: by 2017, faction-associated students reportedly encountered difficulties entering mainstream yeshivot, while marriages between the two groups were becoming less common.[6]

Auerbach, born in Jerusalem in 1931, was a son of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach.[4] He led the movement’s struggle against conscription and opposed negotiations over draft arrangements.[4] His religious rationale included the view that the state’s “only right to exist” derived from its support for Torah scholars, and in 2014 he called on followers to “sacrifice themselves” in the struggle against conscription.[4]

After Shmuel Auerbach’s death in 2018, 12 rabbis and yeshiva heads signed a declaration pledging to continue his path.[7] Published in HaPeles, the declaration accompanied the presentation of a new independent council of Torah sages.[7] Asher Deutsch and Azriel Auerbach were among the prominent figures identified as possible successors at that stage.[7]

Rabbi Asher Deutsch subsequently became the faction’s leader.[8] He opposed legislation that would enlist even some Haredi men, but reportedly also opposed the harder-line tactics of a wing associated with Rabbi Zvi Friedman.[9] After Deutsch died in December 2024, Rabbi Azriel Auerbach was announced as his successor.[8] A brother of Shmuel Auerbach and another son of Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, he had served as a halakhic authority, headed several yeshivas, and served as rabbi of the Chanichei Hayeshivot community in Jerusalem’s Bayit Vegan neighborhood.[8]

By 2026, the movement included a larger camp led by Azriel Auerbach and a harder-line component associated with Friedman, known as the Ratzapnikim.[1] Protest participation could vary between these components: demonstrations generally involved mainly the Ratzapnikim, while an October 2026 mobilization brought together the faction’s different components.[10]

Under the deferment arrangement described in 2021, eligible Haredi men appeared before the IDF and declared that “Torah is their occupation,” postponing enlistment until receiving an exemption at age 26.[2] The Jerusalem Faction rejected this procedure as well as enlistment itself.[2] Azriel Auerbach described efforts to draft Haredi men as attempts to make them nonreligious.[8]

A conscription proposal approved by the ministerial committee on legislation in August 2021 would have lowered the exemption age from 26 to 21, then gradually raised it to 23 within three years.[2] It also proposed rising enlistment targets for yeshivas and budget reductions for institutions failing to meet specified targets.[2] The faction rejected the proposal in principle, so the proposed age changes did not alter its objection to cooperation with the state.[2]

The legislative dispute continued in 2022, when a related bill passed its first Knesset reading on January 31 but did not pass a second or third reading.[11] That bill also proposed annual enlistment benchmarks and reduced yeshiva funding where benchmarks were not met.[11] Implementation of the Supreme Court’s 2017 ruling striking down the exemption for ultra-Orthodox men was postponed for the tenth time, until February 15, 2023.[11] The stay on the order striking down exemption amendments expired on June 30, 2023; the government had meanwhile resolved to pursue new legislation by March 31, 2024, and instructed the IDF not to conscript eligible Haredi men until then.[12]

National electoral abstention became another expression of the faction’s separation from mainstream Haredi leadership.[13] In 2022, Deutsch instructed followers again to abstain from Knesset elections, continuing a practice followed in every national election since 2015.[13] He argued that Haredi parties had compromised on religious questions, including military service for yeshiva students, and the faction opposed arrangements supported by Shas and United Torah Judaism.[13] Estimates at the time placed its associated eligible electorate at nearly 30,000 people.[13]

In an October 2026 essay, Yehoshua Pfeffer described a subsequent move into national electoral politics through an independent list called Tzeva Shahor, or “Color Black.”[14] He interpreted this as an effort to transform the faction’s uncompromising position into an independent political force.[14]

Road blockages and demonstrations against the arrest of draft evaders have been recurring methods of faction protest.[4] During Auerbach’s leadership, demonstrations disrupted daily life in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Beit Shemesh, Safed, and Modi’in, with clashes and arrests accompanying some protests.[4] Auerbach’s approach linked individual refusal to collective support: a student arrested for failing to report would be backed by demonstrations and road blockages seeking his release.[15]

On March 22, 2018, the faction demonstrated against the arrest of a military deserter, and clashes broke out with police.[16] Demonstrators threw stones and other objects, used tear gas against officers, and vandalized cars; police dispersed the crowd with “skunk water” and arrested more than 30 protesters.[16]

The faction and affiliated initiatives use hotlines and electronic alerts to mobilize supporters when authorities attempt to arrest draft evaders.[1][10] Reports describe crowds gathering after alerts and, in some cases, preventing arrests.[1][10] By 2026, volunteer alert systems included “Tzeva Shachor” and “The Kidnappers Have Arrived,” with dispatchers operating around the clock.[1] The cited organizations had more than 100,000 registrants across Haredi streams; this was a measure of alert-system registration, not Jerusalem Faction membership.[1]

On October 8, 2026, hundreds of demonstrators blocked roads in Jerusalem and the Tel Aviv area after the faction announced protests against renewed arrests of draft evaders.[10] Blockages included the entrance to Jerusalem, Bar Ilan Street, and Highway 4 near Bnei Brak.[10] The demonstrations lasted about two hours, and police announced the arrest of three demonstrators on suspicion of assaulting officers.[10]

Pfeffer’s October 2026 essay describes repeated road blockages, confrontations with police, harassment of Haredi recruits, and occasional violence as features of the faction’s protest activity.[14] He also recounts a march by thousands in Jerusalem in late September 2026 welcoming draft evaders released from military prison, with signs calling the IDF “the enemy army” and repeating “we will die rather than enlist.”[14] In his account, sharp political condemnation came overwhelmingly from outside mainstream Haredi leadership.[14]

Peleg Yerushalmi was among the ultra-Orthodox groups participating in Jerusalem protests during 2022 against conscription and a planned light-rail route through an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood.[17] Hundreds of demonstrators clashed with police on March 3 while protesting the arrest of a Haredi youth who had refused military service; six people were arrested and police used water cannon.[17] At a July 26 demonstration against the light-rail route, protesters set trash bins on fire, police again used water cannon, and four people were arrested.[17] These incidents were part of the broader protest activity that year and were not specifically attributed to the Jerusalem Faction.[11]

In 2023, Peleg Yerushalmi and Eda Haredit were again among the groups holding Jerusalem demonstrations against Haredi conscription and the proposed light-rail route.[12] The groups were identified collectively rather than assigned participation in individual demonstrations.[12]

The faction’s influence combines a minority social base with institutions and mobilization networks capable of sustaining visible public protest.[5][1] A 2017 estimate placed it at approximately 10 percent of the Ashkenazi Haredi community and 6.5 percent of the overall Haredi community.[6] A 2018 estimate instead described it as 10 to 15 percent of the Lithuanian community.[5] These figures refer to different populations and do not constitute a single membership count.[5][6]

Its position also illustrates the distinction between protecting Torah study through an administrative deferment and refusing participation in the state’s conscription system altogether.[2] Mainstream Lithuanian and Sephardi arrangements accepted reporting to the IDF while preserving study, whereas the faction treated that cooperation as a threat to the Torah world.[2]

Pfeffer interprets this resistance as part of a wider effort to preserve Rabbi Elazar Menachem Man Shach’s legacy of Haredi separation.[14] In his analysis, the underlying concern extends beyond the army to Haredi participation in universities, professional workplaces, and other Israeli institutions.[14]

The faction’s refusal to cooperate with recruitment procedures belongs to the wider Israeli dispute over Haredi exemptions and the distribution of civic obligations.[2] Many in the general Jewish public regarded the deferment system as evasion of those obligations, while the faction opposed even the administrative compromises accepted by other Haredi streams.[2]

Interpretations of the original split differ: some in the Haredi mainstream viewed it chiefly as a struggle over communal authority rather than enlistment ideology alone.[6] Ideological labels also vary, with distinctions drawn between Azriel Auerbach’s non-Zionist camp and Friedman’s anti-Zionist current rather than a single description applying uniformly to the movement.[1]

Responsibility for protest violence has also been disputed: a faction spokesman denied organizing violence in one investigated incident, while an affiliated initiative said its appeals called for lawful support and protest.[18]