Sylvie and Yinon Tsuriely, 55 and 61, residents of Jerusalem, have had many sleepless nights since Hamas’s devastating attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.

“We have three sons and one daughter, ages 21 to 29,” Yinon said. “The three eldest are all reservists, and the youngest is an officer. They were all drafted as soon as the war started. Two of our sons served in Gaza, one in the north, and our daughter is in the aviation.”

The couple spoke to The Times of Israel on the margins of a march demanding universal enlistment in the Israel Defense Forces and calling for all citizens to share the burden of military service. Promoted by bereaved families and leading reservist organizations, the march was organized against the backdrop of ultra-Orthodox communities’ staunch refusal to relinquish the blanket military exemptions their young men have received for decades.

“In this catastrophic situation, everyone needs to serve in the army,” Yinon said. “We are also religious, I come from a family of rabbis, but everyone in our family serves.”

“We cannot go on like this,” echoed Sylvie. The woman held a sign reading, “Are your brothers to go to war while you stay here?”quoting Moses’s response to some of the Israelite tribes who wanted to settle beyond the Jordan River without entering the land of Israel after the Exodus from Egypt.

“Learning Torah does not contradict serving in the army,” said Yinon. “Even our forefather Moses said so. My children continued to study Torah as they were in Gaza and Lebanon, but the most important mitzvah [commandment] is to save our people, save lives.”

According to the organizers, around 5,000 people took part in the march, which began at the Castel National Heritage Site, a strategic hill west of Jerusalem that saw some of the fiercest battles during the War of Independence. The march concluded near the Knesset, covering a distance of about eleven kilometers.

Most participants, including many families with children, sported knitted kippahs and colorful head coverings typically worn by national religious community members. The organizers emphasized that the initiative was meant to prove tauthorities that the Zionist bloc that serves in the army — both secular and religious — can unite for a shared goal.

The groups promoting the event included the Forum of Reservist Wives, El HaDegel, Shotafut LeSherut or “Partnership to Serve,” the “Shoulder to Shoulder” Movement, and the Religious-Zionist Forum of Reservists. The Kibbutz movement and the rabbinical group Tzohar also joined.

“My husband is in his third round of service,” said Yael from Or Yehuda, who attended the event with her one-year-old Atalia. “He was away in the last months of my pregnancy and after I gave birth. Everyone needs to enlist so that more people can take turns in serving.”

In June, the High Court of Justice ruled that draft exemptions could no longer be extended to military-age Haredi men and that the IDF must begin drafting them. However, ultra-Orthodox parties — key governing coalition members — have resisted any compromise to implement the ruling.

According to data provided by Lt. Col. Avigdor Dickstein, head of the Haredi branch of the IDF’s Personnel Directorate, to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee Wednesday, the army sent out 10,000 initial draft orders to members of the Haredi community in several waves between July 2024 and March 2025. However, only 2% of them actually joined the IDF.

The government, for its part, has shown little political will to resolve the issue, even as Israel remains embroiled in a prolonged war on multiple fronts.

“I want all of you to look at the picture of my son,” said bereaved father, Hagay Lober, whose son, reserve Staff Sergeant Elisha Yehonatan Lober, was killed during fighting in Gaza in December 2023. “This is my son who was killed in Khan Younis. Beard. Peyot. Love for God. He was a man of Torah.”

In an emotional address to the rally, Lober shared how, four days after the traditional week of mourning, his other son went back to fight in Gaza.

“He came to his mother and me to apologize that he was throwing us again into this terrible nightmare,” he said. “He told us he had to return because there weren’t enough people.”

Currently, approximately 66,000 Haredi men between the ages of 18 and 24 have secured exemptions from military service.

“Haredim, my brothers, be our brothers according to the word of God, not according to what the newspaper Hamodia says,” Laly Derai said in her speech, appealing directly at the ultra-Orthodox community and referring to a prominent ultra-Orthodox newspaper. Derai has become a face of the movement for equal enlistment since her son Saadia fell in Gaza in June 2024.

“Sanctify God’s name because this [serving in the army] is what God requires from us,” she added. “The disagreement between us is not a matter of Torah, because the Torah states clearly what we need to do. It is an ideological and political disagreement.”

Former science and technology minister Izhar Shay, father of Staff Sgt. Yaron Oree Shay, 21, who was killed on October 7, 2023, also spoke at the rally next to the Knesset.

“The soldiers who fell to protect our nation defended the Torah and the existence of the Jewish people, and this is why we all need to enlist, secular, traditional, religious and yes, ultra-Orthodox,” Shay said.

“I was discharged from the army in October after three years and four months, and in November, they called me up for my first round of reserve duty,” said Yonatan Shalev, 22, founder of the Shoulder to Shoulder movement.

“Now they called me up again, and of course, I will stand up to the challenge,” he said.

Also at the march was Immigration Minister Ofir Sofer, a member of the far-right Religious Zionism party, which aspires to represent the values of the national religious community in Israel.

“I am here to support one of the most important moves that we need to make at this time,” Sofer told The Times of Israel.

Asked what the government plans on doing, Sofer said, “we need to find a way to increase the number of soldiers and especially combat soldiers.”

He acknowledged that Haredim abroad have a very different approach than their fellow ultra-Orthodox in Israel.

“Those who make aliyah do enlist,” Sofer said, using the Hebrew term for immigration. “It’s a different type of Haredim.”