In 1949 Israel became the first country in the world to apply mandatory conscription to women, with the enactment of the Defense Service Law, that obliged women to serve one year in military service. This law was applied to religious women as well, and caused a stir in the Haredi community, who saw it as a threat to its values and way of life. This was also the view held by the chief rabbinate.
In order to address the unique needs of the Haredi sect and to reconcile its outlook with national policy, the law stated that a woman who felt that her religion prevents her from serving in the army, could be exempt from service. In 1952 this law was modified to prescribe that women who wished to be exempt from military service must state their claims in front of an exemption committee. The posters before you, reflect the approach of the Haredi sect to the matter, which it conceived as an aggressive step in a cultural dispute, in which the state used its advantage – the authority of enforcement.
With regard to the question of the conscription of Haredi men, the posters remind us that the approach of the Haredi sect is diverse. Thus, for example, in 1948, the Agudat Yisrael party, the first Haredi political party in Israel, published posters calling religious men to join the Army in the wake of the 1948 war.