Less than 30 minutes' drive from the hip tech hub of Tel Aviv, Bnei Brak feels like another country and another time.
Men scurry into synagogues and seminaries to study the Torah — the Jewish holy text — while kids push other children in prams, without a smartphone in sight.
The ultra-Orthodox city is Israel's most densely populated, its streets straining under the weight of the community's sky-high birthrate.
There's also a staggeringly high unemployment rate. Almost half of ultra-Orthodox men don't work because they're studying the Torah at a huge cost to the state.
Until recently they also didn't have to take part in Israel's mandatory military service — a key pillar of the country's national security and national identity.
But a ruling in the country's highest court has changed everything and it's posing an existential threat to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's political survival.
'We saw what that spiritual protection is worth'
The exemption for the ultra-Orthodox community is as old as Israel itself — when in the wake of the destruction of Jewish communities during The Holocaust, protecting religious scholars was considered important to the new Jewish state.
Along with the conscription exemption, Israel also decided to provide ultra-Orthodox men with a stipend to study the Torah all day.
At the time, it only applied to about 400 students. Seventy-five years later, the ultra-Orthodox now make up a quarter of Israel's enlistment-aged men.
Lawyer Ayelet Hashachar-Saidof, who founded the Mothers on the Front movement when her son was drafted, calls it "75 years of human stupidity".
"At the moment there are about 200,000 'Torah students' who are 'protecting the state of Israel'," she said, making quotation marks with her fingers.
"And on the 7th of October, we all saw what that spiritual protection is worth. When the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) didn't arrive, the Army of God, as they call it, also didn't arrive."
Israel's war in Gaza has sparked a mass mobilisation of soldiers, a shortage of which has stirred up long-running tensions about who serves the country and who the country serves.
"We are fearful, we really don't sleep well at night because our children are in combat," Ayelet said.
"Essentially, we are protecting everyone here. We are suffering the burden of anxiety alone. Our children fight alone and we are fearful alone."
Last week Ayelet and her group celebrated a big win – an interim court ruling that will end state funding for ultra-Orthodox students who don't serve in the army, and attend yeshivas (schools where the Torah is studied).
"Starting today, no-one has an exemption and there are no funds [for the yeshivas]," she said.
"It's a big moment because for 75 years we didn't have any equality in this country."
Praying for the success of the soldiers
The move has created angst and defensiveness among many in the ultra-Orthodox community and those who feel their way of life is now at risk.
Haim Laurence is a grey-bearded student at the Chazon Ish Kollel, a Jewish seminary for married men, and he's worried about the court's ruling.
"We had the Torah given to us on Mount Sinai. And … in order to continue it we have to continue to learn it every single day, the whole day," he said.
"If we stop that … by going into the army … it would cancel this whole gift that we've been given. And we cherish the gift dearly with all of our heart."
Every year from the age of 18, Haim applied for a deferment of his military service and continued to study Torah.
When, at the age of 34, his seventh child was born, he received his army exemption letter.
He argues that what they are doing is also a form of service that may in fact be doing more to protect the country than joining soldiers on the front line.
"There's part of the nation to do fighting and part of the nation that do the praying for the success of the soldiers or the success of the whole nation," he said.
"Thousands of us get up in the middle of the night and daven [pray] for the soldiers that they should have peace and success.
"If not for that, then it might it be — God forbid — that there would have been much, much more losses on our side."
On the day the court ruling took effect, some young ultra-Orthodox men arrived at a draft centre near Tel Aviv, seeking their annual deferments.
Elhanan Kaplan, 21, was told he was a day late.
He's worried about the prospect of going to the army and explains what's at the heart of the issue — the inability of secular people to understand the religious beliefs of the ultra-Orthodox.
"I am not enlisting because I hold a certain belief and if someone else does not believe in it, I have no way of explaining why I don't enlist," he said.
"I understand his pain and I understand his sadness because he sends children to the army and he doesn't understand why I don't enlist. And when I tell him my answer, he doesn't believe in it."
Netanyahu 'on collision course with voters'
While members of the ultra-Orthodox community say the matter threatens their way of life, it's also an existential issue for Mr Netanyahu.
Yohanan Plesner from the Israel Democracy Institute, and a former member of the country's parliament, the Knesset, said the prime minister was caught between an angry public wanting change and ultra-Orthodox members of his coalition who could bring him down.
"This is by far the most challenging political crisis that he's dealing with," Mr Plesner said.
"It really puts him at a collision course with his own voters, with his own constituency, and as a result potentially with some of his own faction members as well."
Mr Plesner knows just how powerful the ultra-Orthodox factions can be.
In 2012 he was part of a committee tasked by Mr Netanyahu with drafting legislation that would draw more ultra-Orthodox men into the military.
"A day before we published the blueprint of our recommendations, Prime Minister Netanyahu dismantled the committee because of his political commitment to the ultra-Orthodox parties," Mr Plesner said.
"As a result, we pulled out of the coalition and there was an early election around that issue. It was 12 years ago, and now we're pretty much in a new incarnation of the same issue, with many similarities."
In 2017 Israel's supreme court ruled that blanket military service exemptions for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students were discriminatory and illegal and it gave the state until March 31, 2024, to find a way to comply with the ruling.
Last year the Netanyahu government had planned to pass a law that would allow the Knesset to bypass supreme court rulings, thereby allowing ultra-Orthodox to continue to get draft exemptions.
Massive demonstrations took place across the country for months against this and other anti-democratic bills.
But then October 7 happened and, in the meantime, the government did not submit a plan to the court.
On April 7, the exemption expired.
Now, if his fragile coalition falls apart, Mr Netanyahu will likely lose the next election and be unable to pass laws that would drop the multiple corruption charges that could land him in jail.
Mr Plesner said the issue came down to three things: the principle of equality, the military need and the economic implications, all of which were highly valued by the majority of the Israeli population.
He said unless the ultra-Orthodox community was made to serve, the country faced a bleak future.
"It's a huge and growing community in Israel that does not participate in the labour market, and joining military service at a young enough age is actually an entry point into the Israeli economy and Israeli society," he said.
"So essentially it's a way to integrate this huge community that can either help Israel continue to be strong and prosperous or hopefully not lead to a deterioration to an economy with Third World features."
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