One of the most prominent spiritual leaders of the ultra-Orthodox sector, Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman, was all for the recruitment of shabbabniks to the ultra-Orthodox IDF battalion known as Nahal Haredi when the issue was raised two decades ago. He reasoned that instead of being idle, roaming the streets and getting in trouble with the law, those youths would do better in the military, where they could be rehabilitated. The IDF, for its part, is interested in enlisting these young people, who are taking advantage of the law that exempts yeshiva students from military service, and quite often fictively enroll in a yeshiva to dodge service.

Over the years, special yeshiva-like educational institutions have been set up especially for them in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak. After all, it is a rather widespread and quite familiar phenomenon in the ultra-Orthodox sector. Many shabbabniks change direction once they grow up, and after marrying and starting a family, they become full-fledged members of the ultra-Orthodox community.

Unlike many of those who openly question the tenets on which they have been raised and abandon their religion , leaving the ultra-Orthodox community, the shabbabniks sit on the fence, vacillating between the ultra-Orthodox community and the larger society. Basically, the shabbabniks have no problem with faith. They keep wearing the Jewish traditional skullcap (although they may at times remove it), but their attire is not always in line with ultra-Orthodox conventions — a uniform consisting of a white shirt and black trousers.

The shabbabniks are teens from ultra-Orthodox families who dropped out of the educational institutions of the community, whether of their own accord or due to external circumstances, and are aimlessly roaming the streets. As a matter of fact, they are no different from their counterparts in society at large, those marginalized youths who dropped out of school. Some of them are working odd Jobs. Others, at least as the stereotype goes, are spending their time having fun, walking the fine line between the permissible and impermissible, bordering on criminal behavior. As one would expect, these youths often get in trouble with the law and find themselves in conflict with the ultra-Orthodox leadership.

It was recently reported in the ultra-Orthodox press that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) no longer take it at face value when ultra-Orthodox youths say their vocation is to study the Torah, for which they have been customarily considered exempt from military service. The IDF is now checking the authenticity of the claims to find out whether those self-declared yeshiva students are actually studying or seeking to avoid conscription . The IDF is primarily targeting a specific group in the ultra-Orthodox community: yeshiva dropouts dubbed "shabbabniks."

The army has recently changed tactics and started monitoring the Facebook accounts of these youths to see whether they are really leading ultra-Orthodox lives by the photos they upload. If they are not, they must enlist in the military like all other youths in the State of Israel. In fact, when it comes to locating shabbabnik service-dodgers, Facebook proves to be a most effective tool, as no ultra-Orthodox youth, even if exposed to the Internet, would ever consider joining any of the social networks. Hence, generally speaking, an ultra-Orthodox youth with a social network profile must inevitably be some kind of shabbabnik.

About two years ago, it was reported in the Israeli press that the IDF operates through "recruitment agents" who mingle under cover in the ultra-Orthodox communities and persuade the youths to enlist in the army. However, faced with ultra-Orthodox activists who oppose the recruitment of their youth and acted to expose those agents, the IDF had to give up that approach. It may well be that the decision to locate potential recruits through the social networks stems out of the limited ability of the IDF agents to operate freely.

"I have no wish to serve in the army; this system does not suit me. My older brother served in the army and regretted it. The discipline, having to get up early and to go through the training — well, it's something that just doesn’t speak to me. I would rather enjoy my youth than carry a weapon and risk my life," a 22-year-old shabbabnik called Meir told Al-Monitor. Asking to be identified by his first name only, he admitted that he declared himself a yeshiva student and thus evaded military service. "I believe that not everybody is suitable to serve in the army. I have left the yeshiva because I want to exercise my freedom. You must be an absolute fool to trade the restrictive yeshiva way of life for the military routine. If they try to recruit me, I'll do my best to find my way back to the yeshiva, one way or another. My parents don’t like the idea of my enlistment either," he said. "They would rather see me studying in an open yeshiva environment as a non-dormitory student."

Meir fears that he will be forced to enlist and has decided to keep a low profile on social networks. "I restricted access to my [Facebook] account, denying access to all but my close friends who are on my contact list and blacklisted some that I don't really know," he said.

"It's not up to us to decide who is ultra-Orthodox and who is not," explained an IDF Personnel Directorate officer who spoke with Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. "It has already been established by the law according to a clear-cut parameter: Anyone who has studied for two years between the ages of 14 and 18 in an ultra-Orthodox institution is considered ultra-Orthodox. The problem is that there are many cases of fraud and deception. We know that there are institutions that, in return for a fee, grant youths who are not attending a yeshiva the status of a yeshiva student whose vocation is the study of the Torah. We are fighting this phenomenon in various ways. For instance, we check through the Ministry of Economy whether the youth under consideration is registered as an employee. There are also whistleblowers. And in some cases — quite a few, in fact — parents told us that their son was not studying at a yeshiva, contrary to what the youth himself declared, and asked us to enlist him in the army so that he won't roam the streets. In addition, we are monitoring the social networks. If we find out that a certain youth is hanging out with girls or working overseas, we revoke his yeshiva-student status right away. We have repealed the yeshiva-student status of more than 1,000 youths this way."

What the IDF officer told Al-Monitor reflects the efforts to meet the recruitment quotas set by the Defense Ministry for the ultra-Orthodox sector at several thousand per year. Failure to meet the target would entail sanctions against the ultra-Orthodox sector. Ironically, it seems that the military is even more concerned over the possibility of sanctions than the ultra-Orthodox themselves. Indeed, IDF officers believe that such sanctions would do more harm than good and cause a drastic reduction in the number of ultra-Orthodox recruits, forever alienating the ultra-Orthodox community. Thus, they are willing to do practically anything, even peek at the private photos of teens on Facebook, to meet the recruitment quotas and avoid imposing sanctions on the ultra-Orthodox sector.