UMAN, Ukraine — Yaakov Bermann made his way from Jerusalem to this Ukrainian city in time for Rosh Hashanah this year, when the population swells with pilgrims seeking to pray at the grave of the Hasidic rabbi Nachman of Bratslav.

But one of his close friends, he said, wasn’t so fortunate. The friend was arrested at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, one of more than 100 haredi Orthodox men who have been ensnared in a dragnet against draft dodgers while trying to leave Israel.

“ That’s a big mistake they’re making,” Bermann said, referring to the Israeli government’s crackdown. “I feel like if they approached it in a more civil manner instead of force, it would definitely make more change.”

The airport arrests point to how this year’s Uman pilgrimage has emerged as a flashpoint in one of Is

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