Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring one key issue currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World.

This week, The Times of Israel deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaks with ToI's senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur. 

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.

So this week, as more murmurings of discontent are heard by Likud MK -- and their voting block -- we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, What Matters Now.

What Matters Now podcasts are available for download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves. 

Illustrative image: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waves to his supporters after the first exit poll results for the Israeli parliamentary elections at his Likud party's headquarters in Jerusalem, March. 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

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