A large fire blazed in the street, set by ultra-Orthodox protesters who had ignited a dumpster. Police officers on horseback tried to keep order as water cannons on trucks sprayed “skunk water,” a vile-smelling liquid, to disperse the crowd. Hundreds of men in black suits and black hats of the Edah Haredit sect grew agitated as a top rabbi, shouting in Yiddish from a balcony, denounced the Israeli government for drafting the ultra-Orthodox. They had been exempt from military service to focus on religious study since the founding of Israel, but now they were needed for the war in the...