Welcome to The Times of Israel’s Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what’s happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

ToI senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur joins host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today’s special episode of What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World.

Ultra-Orthodox men of military age have been able to avoid being conscripted to the IDF for decades by enrolling in yeshivas for Torah study and obtaining repeated one-year service deferrals until they reach the age of military exemption.

This week, a historic High Court ruling — which found that there is no legal basis for excluding Haredi men from the military draft — brought the need for a true Haredi draft law into focus.

So when Likud MK and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein delayed a vote on a Defense Ministry-backed “draft Security Service Law” due to what he said was a failure to reach a “broad consensus” on the matter, political pundits paid attention.

Likewise, polls indicated this week that a “fantasy” political party of former prime minister Naftali Bennett, Yisrael Beytenu party leader Avigdor Liberman, New Hope head Gideon Sa’ar and former Mossad director Yossi Cohen would be the largest faction in the Knesset if elections were held today, winning 25 seats.

For more updates, please check out The Times of Israel’s ongoing live blog.

Edelstein delays IDF reservists law amidst growing coalition tensions over draft

TV polls: Potential new right-wing alliance would win big in new election

THOSE WE HAVE LOST: Civilians and soldiers killed in Hamas’s onslaught on Israel

THOSE WE ARE MISSING: The hostages and victims whose fate is still unknown

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