reservists<\/a> on Oct. 7, current participation is less than half that, according to Zamir\u2019s office. The decline stems from exhaustion and economic hardship after months of repeated call-ups, anger over haredi draft exemptions, and a loss of trust in the government, especially as officials have said returning the remaining 58 hostages is not the war\u2019s top goal.<\/p>\nSigns of a crisis are mounting: Last week, a Knesset committee voted to extend the government\u2019s right to call up reservists, over the objection of opposition lawmakers who said the government should do more to conscript haredi soldiers before pressing others back into service. In recent days, two reservists in an advocacy group called Soldiers for Hostages \u2014 one who spent 110 days in uniform since Oct. 7, another who had reported for 270 days of duty \u2014 were sentenced to military prison for refusing to serve in what one called \u201ca never-ending war.\u201d And a report found that reservists are being called up despite mental health issues that should make them ineligible for service.<\/p>\n
According to data released in March by the Defense Ministry, an outsized portion of the wounded since the war began \u2014 66% \u2014 are reservists, approximately half of whom are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Ministry officials are anticipating that number to rise significantly as more cases are diagnosed.<\/p>\n
Tal Zalcman is one of the reservists who has newly reported for duty. Immediately after Oct. 7, his Air Force squadron was deployed to Israel\u2019s northern border. The site where he was first posted was struck by Hezbollah rockets. Soon, he found himself feeling anxious and depressed \u2013 a departure from his positive mental state before Oct. 7.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone around me was so shaken, but I just shut off,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI stopped thinking about anything that went beyond the next technical task of guard duty, patrols, coordination.\u201d<\/p>\n
After being released from his first stint in the reserves, Zalcman returned to his teaching job at a high school in Ramat Gan \u2014 a decision he now says was a mistake, given the acute mental state he was in at the time, with the onset of panic attacks for the first time in his life. After finishing the year, he realized he needed to make a change. When the school year began in 2024, he was not in the classroom.<\/p>\n
The toll IDF reserve duty takes<\/h3>\n His experience was not unique. A survey by Israel\u2019s national employment service released in March found that 41% of reservists who served after Oct. 7 said they had been fired or otherwise left their jobs after returning to civilian life.<\/p>\n
The frequent churn of workers has strained workplaces and the economy, with watchdogs warning that the expansion of the war could unleash severe economic damage. The back-and-forth has also affected the many reservists who are university students, interrupting their studies and potentially setting them back.<\/p>\n
Eitan Shamir, former head of the national security doctrine department at Israel\u2019s Strategic Affairs ministry, now directs the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. He said faculty and administrators had begun recording lectures and softened attendance policies to account for students who were called into service.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery lecturer takes personal responsibility to ease the burden on reservists,\u201d he said. But he noted that while digital tools have improved access across many departments, some fields \u2014 such as medicine and engineering, where in-person training is a must \u2014 have been hit especially hard, with students falling behind in ways that may be almost impossible to recover from.<\/p>\n
As for Zalcman, leaving the classroom did not ease his depression, which worsened over time. He moved to a therapy farm in the central Israeli community of Nir Tzvi, then, at the urging of friends, traveled to Thailand. A few months later, he found himself in Koh Phangan, at a retreat called David\u2019s Circle, a loosely structured healing space frequented by reservists and survivors of the Nova music festival. The island, known for its mix of hedonism and healing, offered a cocktail of ice baths, psychedelic ceremonies, and easy access to recreational drugs.<\/p>\n
Still searching for relief, Zalcman, who had already trained as a yoga teacher, enrolled in a monk ordination program at a Buddhist monastery. But after being forced to shave his head, relinquish his tefillin, and bow before the Buddha and the senior monk, something in him broke.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone around me seemed happy, but I felt like I was in a cult,\u201d he said. He left the program halfway through.<\/p>\n
Since returning to Israel Zalcman began planning what he hopes will be a first-of-its-kind retreat center: a men-only space for current and former reservists, offering overnight lodging and a program focused on yoga, meditation, and other forms of alternative healing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are only two options for how you come out of this,\u201d he said, referring to reservist service in wartime. \u201cEither you\u2019re in trauma or post-trauma and are therefore in treatment, or you\u2019re the one administering the treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n
But first, he is in Gaza as one of tens of thousands of soldiers flowing into the enclave to fight in Israel\u2019s expanded offensive. \u201cIn part, I returned to Israel for the reserves,\u201d he said. \u201cYou go because they call, because it\u2019s your duty.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Schloss, too, there is no question about whether he will report for his reserve duties, even though he has a growing family and some others are declining to return to service over time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a fine line between fighting for a normal life and encouraging people not to show up,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can\u2019t afford to cross it.\u201d<\/p>\n
But those who do not serve weigh on his mind. For him and many other Israelis, the latest call-ups have underscored how unfair it is that haredi Orthodox Jews are not required to serve.<\/p>\n
Last year, amid intensifying tensions over who serves, Israel\u2019s Supreme Court ruled that the haredi draft exemption in place for decades was illegal. Tens of thousands of haredi young men have been called up, but only a small fraction have reported to induction centers and others have joined street protests against conscription.<\/p>\n
Those who have dodged the draft are subject to penalties, though the military\u2019s strained resources, coming alongside Netanyahu\u2019s close alliance with haredi political parties, have meant that few have been prosecuted. Still, the issue may end up collapsing Netanyahu\u2019s coalition: Haredi politicians have demanded progress on a law formalizing the draft exemption by the holiday of Shavuot, which begins Sunday evening. Otherwise, they have threatened to leave the government, which could deprive the prime minister of a majority.<\/p>\n
For Schloss, who describes himself as right-wing ideologically but not a supporter of the current government, the crisis around haredi enlistment is particularly painful given the upheaval in his own life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the threat is so enormous that you have no choice but to draft someone for 100 days with a week\u2019s notice, then it\u2019s time to take other steps,\u201d Schloss said. \u201cOne step would be to stop funding haredi institutions altogether. To cut 100 million [shekels], or even 400 million. That\u2019s not ethical? Or it\u2019s undemocratic? Maybe. But so is tearing people from their lives for 100 days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shamir noted that the current war \u2014 a prolonged, multi-front conflict involving non-state actors, regional powers, and global superpowers \u2014 is fundamentally different in character than all those that preceded it. Unlike the short, decisive campaigns of the past, he said, this is a war of attrition that tests the stamina of both the military and the civilian population.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt demands long-term resilience and endurance from the home front, not just from those serving on the front lines,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Many of the reservists are married, with young children. Reservists\u2019 wives have emerged as a political constituency in the war, successfully advocating for a 9 billion shekel (roughly $2.5 billion) pot of government funds for the families of deployed soldiers and for policies to otherwise support them. A year ago, under pressure from the constituency, the Knesset passed a law barring employers from firing or placing on unpaid leave the spouses of active-duty reservists, blunting one trauma that had played out for some families since the war\u2019s start.<\/p>\n
But many other challenges have remained. A recent survey by the Reservists\u2019 Wives Forum, which began as an informal Facebook group early in the war and now employs dozens of attorneys working on behalf of families, found that more than half of women with deployed husbands had to cut back on working to compensate for their husbands\u2019 absences despite the protections. In the Facebook group, wives share stories of domestic violence, traumatized children, depressed husbands and financial crises.<\/p>\n
Last fall, a different survey by the organization, which now advocates for the conscription of haredi Israelis, found that virtually all reservists\u2019 wives said their husbands\u2019 service had induced emotional harm \u2014 37% to \u201ca very great degree.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe emotional part is the hardest and unfortunately, this is also the hardest thing for decision-makers to understand,\u201d Sapir Bluzer, one of the group\u2019s co-founders, said on the \u201cIsrael Story\u201d podcast last year. \u201cIt\u2019s much easier to explain to a person like \u2026 someone who works in the Treasury Office how it affects our career, than how it affects emotionally our families.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kaley Halperin, an American-Israeli musician living in Jaffa, is one of the hundreds of thousands of Israeli women whose husbands reported for service on Oct. 7. She spent the first months of the war raising her four children alone while her husband Yoni, a commanding officer in the paratroopers, was deployed to Gaza. Since then, he has spent more than 200 days in the reserves, inducing turmoil in his work in the tech sector and at home.<\/p>\n
In an interview in November 2023, Halperin recalled that during the early days of his service, Yoni didn\u2019t want to see his family \u2014 even when it was permitted \u2014 because, despite missing them deeply, he feared it would weaken his resolve.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said he was working on hardening his heart,\u201d she said at the time. \u201cI told him, \u2018This war is for peace. You have to remember that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
A year and a half later, Halperin said she\u2019s come to understand how unsustainable that kind of emotional detachment really is.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people go into this with a deep sense of mission \u2014 of serving their team, their country, of doing something bigger than themselves,\u201d she said. \u201cBut over time, that can blur into something else. It can make it easier to dehumanize the other side. I believe there has to be a space between committing war crimes and being killed. I pray we\u2019re still in that space.\u201d<\/p>\n
The strain of prolonged service seeped into her marriage, exposing differences in parenting styles and worldviews. \u201cLike in many families, it surfaced things that were already simmering,\u201d she said. The couple decided to separate.<\/p>\n
Yoni has been called back into the reserves for another stint starting in July. He hasn\u2019t fully decided whether to report for duty.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel I\u2019ve paid too high a price. I\u2019ve lost money and business clients, and also paid a price with my family,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd also the mission itself isn\u2019t clear to me. I\u2019m not connected to it. I\u2019m not sure what we\u2019re doing there, except for dragging our feet. We destroy some houses, we\u2019re killing terrorists, it\u2019s not clear to me at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cThe combination of all fronts \u2014 my business, my home, my family, my personal experiences, my time, and my money \u2014 is too much.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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