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As Israel mobilizes an additional 60,000 reservists for its Gaza City offensive, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a showdown over mandatory military service for the Ultra-Orthodox community, a debate sharpened by the strain on reservists pulled from their families for months at a time.

During Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion reached an agreement with the Ultra-Orthodox community to exempt full-time Bible students from the army. The arrangement, known as “Torato manuto” — literally “his Torah is his occupation” — originally applied to only a few hundred students.

Today, that community makes up roughly 15% of Israel’s population of 10 million, a share projected to grow to about a third by 2050 due to high

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