page_title: Protest against conscription of yeshiva students
section_title: Preparation
hierarchical_section_title: Protest against conscription of yeshiva students / Preparation
caption_attribution_description: עברית: עצרת נגד הגיוס 2014
context_page_description: The protest against conscription of yeshiva students was a mass rally held in Jerusalem on March 2, 2014. Its organizers called for a "million-man protest" against a proposed law overturning the exemption from military service for Haredi talmudical students and criminalizing those who refused to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces. From 300,000 to 600,000 people gathered in one of the largest protests in Israeli history.
context_section_description: On February 24, 2014, the leaders of Agudath Israel, Degel HaTorah and Shas gathered for a conference in Bnei Brak and decided on a demonstration a week after the conference. All haredi boys and men over age nine were summoned to attend.
  Leading rabbis from the conservative wing of the national religious community (including Shmuel Eliyahu, Mordechai Sternberg, Micha Halevi and Shlomo Aviner) supported the rally, and a group of nationalist haredi rabbis issued a proclamation calling on the public to participate in the religious, Zionist rally. Other groups, such as the Tzohar and Beit Hillel rabbinical associations, and rabbis from the religious Zionist community (including Haim Druckman) opposed the protest. After harsh commentary by a haredi newspaper about Religious Zionist leader Haim Druckman, Yehoshua Shapira (rabbi of the Ramat Gan yeshiva) and the Association of Community Rabbis (led by Chief Rabbi of Tzfat Shmuel Eliyahu) canceled plans to attend the "million-man march".
  Roads in the capital around the protest area were blocked in the early afternoon and Route 1, the main highway between the capital and the coast, was closed to private vehicles from 2:00 to 7:00 p.m.
caption: Women praying for an end to conscription
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