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Haredi and Secular Jews Must All Serve the Israeli Nation, and Find Purpose Together
I have just returned from a week in Israel, where, together with a delegation from our Beverly Hills community, we visited countless places, met diverse people, and absorbed the atmosphere of a nation still reeling from October 7th — acutely aware that the challenges they face are far from over.
This was my fourth visit to Israel since that horrific October day, and each time until now, I have been struck by the remarkable resilience and unity of purpose of Israel’s population, even as tensions between various groups simmer below the surface.
But this time was different. While Israelis are still united in their resolve to destroy Hamas and resist external attempts to halt their prosecution of the war, on other matters, they are deeply divided, with tensions on full display.
Protests in Jerusalem near the prime minister’s residence are back in full swing, focusing on Benjamin Netanyahu’s seeming inability to bring the remaining hostages in Gaza safely home — either by negotiation or by military means. But the backstory is more about broad dissatisfaction with Bibi’s leadership.
The setting aside of political differences after October 7th has been abandoned, and conflicts are back on display. Even within Netanyahu’s coalition, rifts are widening, and the government hasn’t fallen yet only because his coalition partners know a Bibi-led coalition emerging from an election is wishful thinking.
While we were in Israel, in a landmark ruling, Israel’s High Court of Justice unanimously mandated the drafting of Haredi yeshiva students into the military, ending the blanket exemptions that have been in place since 1948. The court declared a June 2023 government decision to delay drafting eligible Haredi men illegal, and instructed the government to start conscription, although gradually.
The real bombshell was the judges’ unanimous decision to bar state funding for any yeshiva whose students shun military service.
The court’s decision was widely anticipated. Last Shabbat, in a private gathering for our delegation, we heard a detailed prediction of the outcomes from Professor Yedidia Stern, President and CEO of the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI). Despite his Religious Zionist convictions, Professor Stern is sympathetic to Haredi ideals and concerns. As a libertarian, he believes it is not right to impose an integrated Israeli life on those who wish to live purely religious lives, even if they are citizens of Israel.
Nevertheless, he told us, the steady growth of the Haredi sector in Israel — currently 1.2 million out of a population of 10 million, with 7.5 million being Jews — makes the blanket exclusion of Haredim from military service, or any mandated national service, untenable in a country where every other Jew is expected to serve and where national service is a necessity. Unconditionally continuing to fund the Haredi community out of state funds, particularly when many who claim to be in full-time yeshiva study are not, is no longer sustainable.
Public reaction from Haredi leaders has been as expected. This week, Rabbi Dov Lando, the 94-year-old head of Bnei Brak’s Slabodka Yeshiva, visited the United States to urge American Haredim to help save Israel’s Torah institutions, now struggling with a combined $100 million shortfall resulting from the High Court ruling. “The authorities hate Torah scholars, and the situation is dire,” he thundered at a fundraiser, “there are already yeshivas that have closed down!”
Although the campaign organizers claim to have raised the full $100 million, next year’s shortfall will be closer to $300 million according to Professor Stern — and there is no way America’s Haredi community can fund its Israeli counterpart at such levels indefinitely. In any event, the solution doesn’t lie in the United States, it lies in Israel, where the seeds already exist for resolving the issue.
The only thing lacking is bravery. According to one Israeli Haredi insider who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, Haredi leaders “are afraid to express their opinions openly … in their chumashim, the commandment ‘Do not fear any man!’ (Deut. 1:17) has been erased.”
It is an open secret that out of the 12,000 annual exemptions, over half do not meet the standards of full-time Torah study, or even close. The past is the past, but right now, finding some form of military or national service for the thousands of Haredim who are not eligible for exemption is the only way out of the hole which the Haredi community has dug for itself, at least if it wants to remain a viable part of Israel’s present and future.
According to the insider I spoke to, even Rabbi Lando has privately admitted that the current refusal by Haredim to compromise and find a solution is unmaintainable — but he claims not to have the strength to be the one who proposes and pushes for such a dramatic shift. In the meantime, American Haredim are being forced to pay the bill for Israeli Haredim kicking the can down the road.
A future of mutual respect and coexistence was on full display in Kibbutz Be’eri, where our group visited the synagogue, built in a joint effort between Rabbi Shlomo Raanan, a Haredi outreach rabbi who lovingly works with secular Israelis, and Rachel Fricker, a secular Israeli who lived in Be’eri for 33 years before terrorists overran her home on October 7th and utterly destroyed it. Miraculously, she survived the terrorist attack and now lives in a hotel at the Dead Sea until her return to Be’eri, which remains uncertain.
Incredibly, the synagogue was left intact by the terrorists. It is a tiny space, but very warm and homely. In the weeks and months following October 7th, the shul became a haven for IDF soldiers who converged on Be’eri and the surrounding area. Rachel explained how tough it was to get the synagogue built in her secular kibbutz, but that she regularly spoke to God to seek His help as the project progressed.
In 2015, when the idea for a shul in Be’eri was first raised, members of our Beverly Hills community donated money so that it could be built. This was our first visit there, and the experience was overwhelmingly positive.
Rachel Fricker is an inspiration. So is Rabbi Raanan. And when they work together, these two forces of nature are an exponentially greater inspiration. They represent the future for Israel, in which Jews of every stripe and color see themselves as part of one whole, not as exclusive groups existing in isolation alongside each other.
If every Haredi was like Rabbi Raanan, and every secular Israeli was like Rachel Fricker, Israel would become the unconquerable force we all know it could be. There are many who are like them, but right now they remain select individuals. If only these individuals could be the bridgeheads for their respective groups to join forces, no enemy could ever prevail over the united energy of an Israeli society dedicated to the common destiny of Jewish peoplehood.
Bottom line: Israeli Haredim must come up with a workable solution that finally casts the scourge of Haredi separatism to history. This is not the moment to widen the gaps. If October 7th and the Gaza war have revealed anything, it is the importance of finding ways of working together and being united. It can definitely happen. Let’s pray that it does.
The writer is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
The post Haredi and Secular Jews Must All Serve the Israeli Nation, and Find Purpose Together first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Says It Needs Deal on Freeing Hostages to Extend Gaza Ceasefire Deal
Families and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas gather to demand a deal that will bring back all the hostages held in Gaza, outside a meeting between hostage representatives and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem, Jan. 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Tuesday that Israel was ready to proceed to the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal, as long as Hamas was ready to release more of the 59 hostages it is still holding.
Fighting in Gaza has been halted since Jan. 19 under a truce arranged with US support and Qatari and Egyptian mediators, and Hamas has exchanged 33 Israeli hostages and five Thais for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
But the initial 42-day truce has expired and Hamas and Israel, which has blocked the entry of aid trucks into Gaza, remain far apart on broader issues including the postwar governance of Gaza and the future of Hamas itself.
“We are ready to continue to phase two,” Saar told reporters in Jerusalem as Arab leaders prepared to meet in Cairo to discuss a plan for ending the war permanently.
“But in order to extend the time or the framework, we need an agreement to release more hostages.”
Hamas says it wants to move ahead to the second phase negotiations that could open the way to a permanent end to the war with the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the devastated Palestinian enclave and a return of the remaining 59 hostages taken in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
But Israel says its hostages must be handed over for the truce to be extended and backs a plan to extend the ceasefire during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began on Saturday, until after the Jewish Passover holiday in April.
US President Donald Trump’s special Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff is due to visit the region in the next few days to discuss extending the ceasefire or moving ahead of phase two, the State Department said on Monday.
Saar denied that Israel had breached the agreement by not moving ahead to stage two negotiations. He said there was “no automaticity” between the stages, and he said Hamas had itself violated the agreement to allow aid into Gaza by seizing most of the supplies itself.
“It is a means to continue the war against Israel. It’s today the major part of Hamas income in Gaza,” he said.
Aid groups have said that looting and wrongful seizure of aid trucks into Gaza has been a major problem but Hamas, the Islamist terrorist group that seized power in Gaza in 2007, denies seizing aid for its own members.
Saar declined to comment on an Israeli media report that Israel had set a 10-day deadline to reach an agreement or resume fighting but said: “If we want to do it, we will do it.”
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Russian Missile Experts Flew to Iran Amid Clashes With Israel
The S-300 missile system is seen during the National Army Day parade ceremony in Tehran, Iran, April 17, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Several senior Russian missile specialists have visited Iran over the past year as the Islamic Republic has deepened its defense cooperation with Moscow, a Reuters review of travel records and employment data indicates.
The seven weapons experts were booked to travel from Moscow to Tehran aboard two flights on April 24 and Sept. 17 last year, according to documents detailing the two group bookings as well as the passenger manifest for the second flight.
The booking records include the men’s passport numbers, with six of the seven having the prefix “20.” That denotes a passport used for official state business, issued to government officials on foreign work trips and military personnel stationed abroad, according to an edict published by the Russian government and a document on the Russian foreign ministry’s website.
Reuters was unable to determine what the seven were doing in Iran.
A senior Iranian defense ministry official said Russian missile experts had made multiple visits to Iranian missile production sites last year, including two underground facilities, with some of the visits taking place in September. The official, who requested anonymity to discuss security matters, didn’t identify the sites.
A Western defense official, who monitors Iran’s defense cooperation with Russia and also requested anonymity, said an unspecified number of Russian missile experts visited an Iranian missile base, about 15 km (9 miles) west of the port of Amirabad on Iran’s Caspian Sea coast, in September.
Reuters couldn’t establish if the visitors referred to by the officials included the Russians on the two flights.
The seven Russians identified by Reuters all have senior military backgrounds, with two ranked colonel and two lieutenant-colonel, according to a review of Russian databases containing information about citizens’ jobs or places of work, including tax, phone, and vehicle records.
Two are experts in air-defense missile systems, three specialize in artillery and rocketry, while one has a background in advanced weapons development and another has worked at a missile-testing range, the records showed. Reuters was unable to establish whether all are still working in those roles as the employment data ranged from 2021 to 2024.
Their flights to Tehran came at a precarious time for Iran, which found itself drawn into a tit-for-tat battle with arch-foe Israel that saw both sides mount military strikes on each other in April and October.
Reuters contacted all the men by phone: five of them denied they had been to Iran, denied they worked for the military or both, while one declined to comment, and one hung up.
Iran’s defense and foreign ministries declined to comment for this article, as did the public relations office of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite military force and internally designated terrorist organization that oversees Iran’s ballistic missile program. The Russian defense ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Cooperation between the two countries, whose leaders signed a 20-year military pact in Moscow in January, has already influenced Russia’s war on Ukraine, with large numbers of Iranian-designed Shahed drones deployed on the battlefield.
ROCKETS AND ARTILLERY
The flight booking information for the seven travelers was shown to Reuters by Hooshyaran-e Vatan, a group of activist hackers opposed to the Iranian government. The hackers said the seven were traveling with VIP status.
Reuters corroborated the information with the Russian passenger manifest for the September flight, which was provided by a source with access to Russian state databases. The news agency was unable to access a manifest for the earlier flight, so couldn’t verify that the five Russian specialists booked on it actually made the trip.
Denis Kalko, 48, and 46-year-old Vadim Malov were among the five Russian weapons experts whose seats were booked as a group on the April flight, the records showed.
Kalko worked at the defense ministry’s Academy for Military Anti-Aircraft Defense, tax records for 2021 show. Malov worked for a military unit that trains anti-aircraft missile forces, according to car ownership records for 2024.
Andrei Gusev, 45, Alexander Antonov, 43, and Marat Khusainov, 54, were also booked on the April flight. Gusev is a lieutenant-colonel who works as deputy head of the faculty of General Purpose Rockets and Artillery Munitions at the defense ministry’s Penza Artillery Engineering Institute, according to a 2021 news item on the institute’s website. Antonov has worked at the Main Rocket and Artillery Directorate of the Defense Ministry, according to car registration records from 2024, while bank data shows Khusainov, a colonel, has worked at the Kapustin Yar missile-testing range.
One of the two passengers onboard the second flight to Tehran in September was Sergei Yurchenko, 46, who has also worked at the Rocket and Artillery Directorate, according to undated mobile phone records. His passport number had the prefix “22”; Reuters was unable to determine what that signified though, according to the government edict on passports, it isn’t used for private citizens or diplomats.
The other passenger on the September flight was 46-year-old Oleg Fedosov. Residence records give his address as the office of the Directorate of Advanced Inter-Service Research and Special Projects. That is a branch of the defense ministry tasked with developing weapons systems of the future.
Fedosov had previously flown from Tehran to Moscow in October 2023, according to Russian border crossing records viewed by Reuters. On that occasion, as he did for the September 2024 flight, Fedosov used his passport reserved for official state business, the records showed.
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Arab Summit to Focus on Egypt’s Alternative to Trump’s ‘Gaza Riviera’
A general view shows destroyed buildings in northern Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, near the Israel-Gaza border, Nov. 11, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Egypt was expected to present a reconstruction plan for Gaza to Arab leaders in Cairo on Tuesday that would cost $53 billion over five years and avoid resettling Palestinians, in contrast to US President Donald Trump’s idea of developing a “Middle East Riviera,” according to a copy of the plan seen by Reuters.
It was expected that the plan would be adopted in the final communique to be released at the end of the summit on Tuesday evening. Reuters has seen a draft of the final communique.
Neither the reconstruction plan nor the communique addresses the big unanswered question in negotiations over the future of the Palestinian enclave shattered by 15 months of Israel‘s war with Hamas – who will rule it?
The communique only mentioned what it called support for a Palestinian decision to form an administrative committee for Gaza affairs, and did not tackle the explosive issue of what Hamas’s role would be after the war ended.
Arab leaders were also expected to call for elections in the West Bank and Gaza in one year, according to the draft final communique.
An earlier draft of an Egyptian political plan seen by Reuters on Monday indicated Cairo was pushing for Hamas to be sidelined and replaced by bodies controlled by Arab, Muslim, and Western states. It was unclear if Egyptian officials would also be presenting the political plan at Tuesday’s summit.
Egypt’s reconstruction plan did not specify who would fund the reconstruction of an enclave that has been reduced to rubble.
Any proposal would require heavy buy-in from oil-rich Gulf Arab states such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, who have the billions of dollars needed.
The UAE, which sees Hamas as an existential threat, wants an immediate and complete disarmament of the Palestinian terrorist group, while other Arab countries advocate a gradual approach, a source close to the matter said.
Hamas, founded in 1987 by Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood during the first Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, has said it rejects any solution imposed on the Gaza Strip by outsiders.
It is designated a terrorist group by Israel, the United States, the European Union, Britain, and other countries.
ALTERNATIVE TO TRUMP PLAN
The draft of the summit’s final communique calls on the international community and financial institutions to quickly provide support for the Egyptian vision for Gaza.
Egypt, Jordan, and Gulf Arab states have for almost a month been consulting over an alternative to Trump’s ambition for an exodus of Palestinians and a US rebuild of Gaza, which they fear would destabilize the entire region.
Egypt’s Reconstruction Plan for Gaza is a 112-page document that includes maps of how its land would be re-developed and dozens of colorful AI-generated images of housing developments, gardens, and community centers. The plan includes a commercial harbor, a technology hub, beach hotels, and an airport.
The reconstruction plan projects that rebuilding the enclave would take five years and the first two-year phase would cost $20 billion and involve building 200,000 housing units.
Israel was unlikely to oppose an Arab entity taking responsibility for Gaza’s government if Hamas was off the scene, said another source familiar with the matter.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters the group rejected any attempt to impose projects or any form of non-Palestinian administration, or the presence of any foreign forces on Gaza Strip territory.
“We are keen for the success of the summit, and we hope that there will be a call to reject the displacement and to protect the right of our people in resisting the occupation and governing itself away from any custodianship and intervention,” he added.
The draft communique firmly rejects the mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, which the US proposed and Arab states such as Egypt and Jordan see as a security threat.
Hamas fighters stormed southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages while starting the Gaza war.
Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in Gaza.
Since Hamas drove the Palestinian Authority out of Gaza after a brief civil war in 2007, it has crushed all opposition there.
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