Hundreds of thousands of haredi Orthodox Jewish men joined a mass protest in Jerusalem on Thursday to rail against the Israeli government’s efforts to enlist yeshiva students into the military.

The mass prayer demonstration, called the “Million Man March,” was organized by the leaders of Israel’s different ultra-Orthodox groups in response to a spate of arrests of yeshiva students who had dodged the Israeli draft .

“The debate over the law is still ongoing, and it belongs in the Knesset,” one organizer told Haaretz . “If that were the only issue, we wouldn’t hold a rally. But following the arrests of yeshiva students and the persecution against us, it was decided to protest nonetheless.”

The protest comes one year after the Israeli Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Israel must

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