Why some IDF soldiers refuse to surrender their beards - Al-Monitor: The Middle Eastʼs leading independent news source since 2012

Mordechai Goldman

Mordechai Goldman

Mar 10, 2016

An Israeli soldier prays at a military staging area just outside the northern Gaza Strip December 29, 2008. Israeli aircraft attacked Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip for a third day on Monday and militants launched a fatal rocket attack on Israel in defiance of an offensive that has killed more than 300 Palestinians. REUTERS/Baz Ratner (ISRAEL) - RTR22WIM — An Israeli soldier prays at a military staging area just outside the northern Gaza Strip, Dec. 29, 2008. — REUTERS/Baz Ratner

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TO GO WITH STORY BY PHILIPPE ALFROY
A Turkish barber Mehmet Haskan shaves a client at his salon at Tarlabasi on July 19, 2013 in Istanbul. AFP PHOTO/OZAN KOSE (Photo credit should read OZAN KOSE/AFP/Getty Images)

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Ultra-Orthodox Jews study the Torah at the Ponevezh yeshiva in the central Israeli city of Bnei Brak

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Agence France-Presse

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men study at Jerusalem's Mir Yeshiva, the largest Jewish seminary in Israel July 4, 2012. The ultra-Orthodox Jews have gone from being a tiny minority in Israel's mostly secular society to its fastest-growing sector, now about 10 percent of the 7.8 million population. They are exempt from military duty in Israel but draft deferments and state subsidies for the ultra-Orthodox have become a divisive political issue in Israel, where the government must decide a new law by August to ensure

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Mordechai Goldman

Mordechai Goldman

Ultra Orthodox Jewish youths block a road in Bnei Brak as they protest against their conscription into the Israeli armed forces, on April 1, 2024.

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Row in Israel over ultra-Orthodox draft threatens Netanyahu’s government

Rina Bassist

In Paris, reporting on Israeli politics and European affairs