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Israel’s war has spurred thousands of haredi Israelis to volunteer, cook — and serve in the army
BNEI BRAK, Israel (JTA) — The walls of the Ponevezh Yeshiva, in this haredi Orthodox city outside of Tel Aviv, are lined with decorative windows bearing the names of Eastern European Jewish communities destroyed during the Holocaust.
The yeshiva, a major educational institution and center of haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, life in Israel, has a history colored in tragedy. Founded in a Lithuanian city of the same name, the yeshiva was shuttered and reestablished in B’nei Brak in 1944 when many of its students and faculty were murdered in the Holocaust.
But last week, its students had a more recent tragedy in mind. As they finished Mincha, the afternoon prayer service, they recited Psalm 130 line by line, all chanting together, “From the depths I have called to you, God.”
Ponevezh’s students recited the psalm, a traditional Jewish response to times of crisis, as a plea in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which killed and wounded thousands, largely civilians. After the attack, Israel declared war on the terror group and issued its largest military reserve callup in history, leading hundreds of thousands to don uniforms in a mass mobilization that has changed day-to-day life in Israel.
The attack and the war have also changed haredi society. Historically, few haredi men serve in the Israel Defense Forces, receiving an exemption from the country’s mandatory draft so that they can study Torah full-time at institutions such as Ponevezh. Some haredi communities in Israel disavow Zionism entirely out of the belief that Jews should hold sovereignty in the land of Israel only by divine ordination.
But in the wake of Oct. 7, thousands of haredi men have signed up for military service, and many more haredim have undergone their own mobilization — setting up aid operations to help soldiers and embattled communities alike. That mass eagerness to contribute, haredim say, comes from a culture of mutual aid in haredi society as well as a historical identification with the enormity of Jewish tragedy.
“The haredi community is understanding that as a nation it is important to learn Torah, but also that there is another nation that wants to destroy all of us because we are Jews, like in the Holocaust,” said Chemi Trachtenberg, 21, a haredi man who enlisted in the IDF at age 18 like his secular and religious Zionist peers. Referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he said, “It doesn’t matter if you like Bibi or not, if you like the haredim or not. At the end of the day they want to kill us and we need prayers and weapons.”
A haredi volunteer for the Zaka emergency response service searches through the debris in Kibbutz Be’eri, near the border with Gaza, on October 20, 2023. (Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images)
Debate over whether or not haredi men should be drafted into the IDF has riven Israeli politics and society for decades and has contributed to the rise and fall of multiple governments. As of now, the vast majority do not join the military. Last year, fewer than 10% of eligible haredi men were drafted into the IDF, as opposed to more than 80% of non-haredi Jewish men. (Arab Israelis also receive a blanket exemption from the draft.)
But since Oct. 7, more than 3,000 haredi men have volunteered to serve in non-combat roles such as the army’s medical units or the Home Front Command, which addresses national emergencies and operates services such as sirens warning of incoming rocket fire. One of the new recruits is Yaki Adamker, 33, a media personality who recently made waves after announcing on television that he would enlist after the Oct. 7 massacre.
“I believe that those who are learning from morning to night — they should continue to learn, this is my faith,” he said. “After all we went through, I asked myself, ‘Where am I? Why can’t I serve?’ Somewhere there was a black hole in me that I had to fill.”
He added, referencing the age when haredim age out of a technical requirement to complete military service, “People over 26 feel like they can’t stand on the side and simply observe.” He plans to serve in the military reserves once this war is over as well.
Rabbi Moshe Rabad, who grew up in the haredi community before enlisting in the military and serving as chief rabbi of the Air Force, helped the IDF create pathways for older haredi men to enlist and says he started getting inquiries almost immediately after Hamas’ attack.
“I turned to the army and they said to me, ‘If you bring us a list of 50 Haredim who agree, we will open something for you,’’’ he said. “This was last Tuesday at 4 p.m. We set up a meeting for 9 p.m. and I brought them a list of 300. By the beginning of the week I had 1,000 and people continue to sign up to help the army with whatever they need.”
Even more widespread than the haredi enlistment wave are a range of haredi-led initiatives to aid soldiers and civilians by cooking thousands of meals, ferrying goods and people around the country and helping out with social services in other capacities. Some haredi Israelis have organized to serve the hundreds of grieving families by helping conduct funerals and provide for shiva, the weeklong mourning period following burial.
“Israel is uniting on the way to victory,” reads a large banner ad at the top of Kikar HaShabbat, a leading haredi news website. “The IDF’s soldiers are fighting for us, and we, the haredim, are assembling to assist in any way.”
The banner ad links to an online form that asks volunteers a series of questions: Do you have a driver’s license? Do you have a car? Can you volunteer from home, an office, or another location? What type of volunteering do you want to do? The options include social media work, housing families evacuated from Israel’s border regions, medical work, guard duty, babysitting, food service and several more.
Such efforts span the gamut of Israel’s religiously and politically diverse haredi communities. Akiva Weiss, a haredi journalist, took note that the “very conservative” Vizhnitz Hasidic movement “came to the hospital to cheer up the wounded and comfort the mourning.”
A member of the haredi community collects a selection of toys from a donation center set up for those who have been forced to flee their homes following the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7.(Leon Neal/Getty Images)
The war has also changed the schedules of haredi yeshivas. In addition to the recitation of Psalms, explains haredi journalist Yanki Farber, yeshivas canceled the remainder of an annual vacation period that lasts until the beginning of the Hebrew month of Heshvan, more than a week after the massacre occurred.
“The rabbis ruled that it is impossible for the state to be fighting and people to go on outings,” Farber said. “They told everyone to return to yeshiva,” where students and rabbis alike believe that Torah study provides spiritual protection for Israel.
Rabbinic decrees have addressed the war in other ways, guiding religiously observant Israelis in everything from carrying guns on Shabbat to whether homemade food made for soldiers should be considered kosher.
One reason haredim are eager to enlist in the military and volunteer, Farber said, is that the Oct. 7 attack directly affected haredi communities in southern Israeli cities such as Ofakim and Netivot, where some of the victims were haredi. And haredi soldiers have been killed in the fighting. Trachtenberg recalled the story of a French immigrant and haredi soldier named Binyamin Lev, whose last name means “heart,” and who was killed on Oct. 7.
“He was truly all heart and he was murdered by terrorists,” he said. “It is beautiful to see that people come from around the world to help us.”
Not everyone in the haredi community is pleased with the dramatic changes that are signaling a growing rapprochement between haredim and the military, and that may lead to the arming of haredi Israelis with weapons. Tzipi Lavi, a haredi feminist activist, is critical of the army’s special recruitment efforts that exclude haredi women. One exception, she said, is a separate project of the army, to create civil guard units in haredi cities, which has accepted women.
“They have not allowed women to draft,” she said, referring to the direct call for haredi men to enlist. “Many women tried to help but were refused.”
Lavi is especially concerned with efforts by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister, who has called on Jewish Israelis to arm themselves with weapons and was filmed delivering boxes of rifles to haredi men in the town of Elad. She noted an increased danger of domestic violence.
“It bothers me to see people treating guns like a toy and dispersing weapons like rolls of bread,” she said. “The chance that people will die, mainly women, is higher than the chance that women will be saved by these weapons.”
Lavi is active in Nivcharot, a movement that advocates for haredi women to hold elected office, and is part of the centrist Yesh Atid party, which was founded in part to push for haredi inclusion in the mandatory draft. She hopes to see haredi women run for office and win following the war.
“I very much hope that in the next Knesset there will be Haredi women elected on the liberal party lists,” she said. “Haredi women can be the bridge between the haredim and liberals and Haredim and feminists, because they speak both languages and they understand how the values of both communities are important. And they can be the thread that connects the two worlds.”
Lavi isn’t alone in thinking about how the current moment in haredi communities will carry over to after the fighting. Sruli Shatz, who owns a deli in Bnei Brak serving cholent and other Eastern European Jewish delicacies, hopes “all the division” the country has experienced will recede into the past.
His wish, he said, is that “after the victory of the Jews, we will continue to be unified.”
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‘Hamas Must End Its Rule in Gaza’: Qatar Joins Other Arab Countries in Demanding Terror Group Disarm, Step Down
Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani makes statements to the media with then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Doha, Qatar, Oct. 13, 2023. Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/Pool via REUTERS
Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Arab League, signed onto an unprecedented declaration on Tuesday calling on the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas to disarm, relinquish control over the war-torn Gaza Strip, and release the Israeli hostages it is still holding.
At a French and Saudi-led United Nations conference on reviving conversation and advocacy for a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 17 countries, the 22-member Arab League, and the European Union signed onto the declaration.
“Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority, with international engagement and support, in line with the objective of a sovereign and independent Palestinian State,” it read.
“Governance, law enforcement, and security across all Palestinian territory must lie solely with the Palestinian Authority, with appropriate international support.”
While European and other Western countries have consistently made their condemnation of Hamas and its attacks clear, as well as their commitment to a two-state solution, it is notable that many Arab countries — including Qatar, which has historically supported Hamas diplomatically and financially — signed onto the declaration.
Some foreign policy experts noted the striking inclusion of Qatar, which continues to host senior Hamas leaders.
The declaration also condemned Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, which left 1,200 dead and another 251 taken hostage, and called for an end to the subsequent war which has devastated Gaza.
This is the first time since the Israel-Hamas war began that a united front of Arab countries condemned the Oct. 7 massacre and called on Hamas to disarm and step down from power.
When it comes to a post-war Gaza, the declaration proposes “a temporary international stabilization mission” under the auspices of the United Nations and upon invitation by the Palestinian Authority. It also notes that some countries have expressed readiness to contribute troops to the cause.
“By bringing the Arab countries for the first time to condemn Hamas and call for its disarmament, we are creating, or recreating, the conditions for this political solution that, again, is the only path forward, and we are paving the way,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said in an interview with CBS News.
“We’re paving the way for the future Abraham Accords that the US administration might lead,” he argued, referring to a series of US-brokered deals normalizing ties between Israel and several Arab countries.
Michael Koplow, the chief policy officer of the Israel Policy Forum, a pro-two-state solution think tank, called the declaration “remarkable” and wrote that the Israeli government “should treat this as an unprecedented accomplishment.”
“It explicitly called for a Palestinian state to be demilitarized, marked PA incitement in school curricula as something that must be addressed, and promised Israel full regional integration. It’s basically attaching the full Israeli wishlist to two states,” he argued. At the same time, “there’s plenty in here that Israel reasonably finds objectionable. Full right of return is a non-starter, and the real carrot of a pledge for full normalized diplomatic relations across the board is missing.”
He concluded, “When Israel talks about peace through strength and a transformed regional and [international] environment re: accepting Israel, this is what it actually looks like. If this [government] had an ounce of sense, it would crow about this as the world accepting what it has long demanded and build on it.”
The United States and Israel did not participate in the conference.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement that the conference is “unproductive and ill-timed,” and that it is “a slap in the face to the victims of Oct. 7 and a reward for terrorism.”
“This is a publicity stunt that comes in the middle of delicate diplomatic efforts to end the conflict,” she continued. “Far from promoting peace, the conference will prolong the war, embolden Hamas, and reward its obstruction and undermine real-world efforts to achieve peace.”
Israeli officials have similarly argued that recognizing a Palestinian state at this time would “reward” Hamas’s terrorism, embolden the Islamist group to continue fighting, and only lead to a failed state.
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NYT Adds Editors’ Note to Story That Didn’t Mention Malnourished Gazan Child’s Pre-Existing Health Problems
The headquarters of The New York Times. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
The New York Times has added an editors’ note to a widely shared news article that spotlighted a severely malnourished child in Gaza, revealing that the 18-month-old boy maintained pre-existing health issues that contributed to his current condition.
The addition followed mounting scrutiny over the accuracy of the story and the credibility of its sources.
“This article has been updated to include information about Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, a child in Gaza suffering from severe malnutrition,” read the note posted at the bottom of the story. “After publication of the article, The Times learned from his doctor that Mohammed also had pre-existing health problems.”
The original article focused in part on al-Mutawaq, who has been reportedly suffering from acute malnutrition amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza. The story, accompanied by a harrowing image of the emaciated child, was quickly amplified across social media and used by advocacy groups and some politicians to demand further pressure on Israel to halt its military campaign in the enclave against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
However, within days, Israeli officials and independent analysts raised concerns about the report. Medical experts noted inconsistencies in the image and questioned whether the child’s condition truly reflected famine rather than preexisting illness. Critics pointed out the lack of corroboration from independent humanitarian organizations or UN agencies, many of which have not confirmed famine in northern Gaza despite repeated claims from Hamas-linked sources.
Furthermore, online researchers identified pro-Hamas affiliations among some individuals featured in the story or cited as sources, prompting questions about whether the Times had adequately vetted the material.
Amid growing backlash, the New York Times appended the editors’ note to the article, and the newspaper also issued a statement elaborating on the situation.
“We recently ran a story about Gaza’s most vulnerable civilians, including Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, who is about 18 months old and suffers from severe malnutrition,” a spokesperson said. “We have since learned new information, including from the hospital that treated him and his medical records, and have updated our story to add context about his pre-existing health problems. This additional detail gives readers a greater understanding of his situation.”
“A lie went viral. A child’s illness was twisted into propaganda. This isn’t journalism. It’s a blood libel,” the Israel Foreign Ministry posted on X/Twitter.
A lie went viral. A child’s illness was twisted into propaganda.
This isn’t journalism.
It’s a blood libel. pic.twitter.com/yc0PV0f8TJ— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) July 30, 2025
They quietly added an editor’s note, but the lie already went global. https://t.co/eJmCfoY2jv
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) July 30, 2025
Israeli officials have repeatedly stated that they coordinate with international agencies to facilitate the entry of food and aid into Gaza, and that it is Hamas, not Israel, that diverts or seizes supplies for its fighters. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) recently released footage which showed stockpiles of food, fuel, and medical supplies in areas controlled by Hamas.
The Israeli government has facilitated the entry of thousands of aid trucks into Gaza, with officials condemning international aid agencies for their alleged failure to distribute supplies, which have largely been stalled at border crossings.
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Australian Police Arrest Suspect in Arson Attack on Melbourne Synagogue
The Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT) in Australia announced the apprehension of an unnamed 21-year-old man for his alleged role in a Dec. 6, 2024, arson attack. Photo: Victoria Police
The Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT) in Australia announced the apprehension of an unnamed 21-year-old man who could face charges which carry potential 15- and 10-year jail sentences for his alleged role in a Dec. 6, 2024, arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue — an Orthodox congregation in the Melbourne suburb of Ripponlea — that left one person with minor burns and the building with extensive damage.
On Wednesday, a joint statement from the Australian Federal Police (AFP), Victoria Police, and the Australian Security Intelligence Organization said that in addition to torching the Jewish house of worship, the suspected assailant also allegedly stole a car, an offense with a maximum 10-year sentence, the same as a third charge for “endangering life.” Authorities say the man collaborated with two other individuals in commission of his crimes. They arrested another individual on July 16 for allegedly stealing the car used in the arson.
“Since the fire occurred on Dec. 6 last year, the investigation has been one of the highest priorities for Victoria Police and the JCTT,” Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Wendy Steendam said. “Today’s arrest is a demonstration of our ongoing efforts to hold those involved to account. We now have charged two people as part of this investigation, and I expect there will be more to come.”
Steendam added, “What has also been clear to us throughout this investigation is that assistance from the public is absolutely crucial and without that assistance, the investigation would not be where it is today. We know there are people out there with information that will progress this investigation – whether that is people we have already spoken to or others who are yet to come forward. Again, I appeal for those people to contact police. If you have any details at all about those involved and their motivation, then we want to hear from you. Even the smallest detail or piece of information could prove crucial.”
Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush said that “people deserve to be safe and feel safe, particularly when it comes to their places of worship. This is not negotiable in any way. We remain committed to identifying all those who seek to cause this kind of fear and harm, and ensuring they are brought to justice.”
The Australian government has committed 30 million Australian dollars ($20 million) for reconstructing the synagogue. “This attack was not simply an attack on Jewish Australians; an attack on a synagogue is an attack on Australia and is treated as such,” Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said.
AFP Deputy Commissioner Krissy Barrett confirmed that the JCTT investigated the synagogue attack as politically motivated.
“We will not let this go unpunished in Australia. And that’s why we have responded with relentless determination to pursue those responsible and hold them to account,” Barrett told reporters. “This crime was despicable as it was dangerous, and it is important to acknowledge that this was not just an arson on a synagogue.”
Explaining the broader impact of the arson, Barrett said that “the effect of this crime has rippled through a community that continues to be targeted by criminals. We will not stand for this, and I want to reassure the public that this is not just a priority investigation for the JCTT, but also for the AFP. I want to thank the Jewish community across Australia, and in particular, the Adass Israel Synagogue congregation, for their stoicism, patience, and the support they have shown the JCTT.”
Barrett said that investigators suspect overseas actors may have coordinated the attack. “The motivation is still being assessed,” she said, explaining the AFP was “working closely with our Five Eyes partners and international partners to ensure our collective powers and capabilities are drawn upon to help bring those responsible to justice.”
“Five Eyes” refers to the collaborative relationship between the espionage agencies of anglosphere allies Australia, the United States, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand.
Australian law enforcement had previously announced in January they believed that foreign criminal groups may have orchestrated violence in the wave of antisemitic incidents that Australia has experienced over the last year.
However, recent polling shows a homegrown antisemitism problem in Australia.
From June 27 through July 1, the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) watchdog organization polled 1,000 Australians, finding that only 24 percent of respondents regarded the country’s attitudes toward Jews as “very positive” (9 percent) or “slightly positive” (15 percent). These numbers contrasted with the higher levels (28 percent) who answered “very negative” (8 percent) or “slightly negative” (20 percent).
“Australia used to be thought of as a safe haven for Jews, but that image has unfortunately been shattered over the last two years,” CAM’s CEO Sacha Roytman said in a statement. “Many national and local authorities were left shocked and surprised by this wave of hate and we are working with our partners in Australia to provide strategies and the necessary tools to fight hate and antisemitism.”