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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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Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students

Haredi Jewish men look at the scene of an explosion at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Israel, on Nov. 23, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad
Israel’s military said it would issue 54,000 call-up notices to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students following a Supreme Court ruling mandating their conscription and amid growing pressure from reservists stretched by extended deployments.
The Supreme Court ruling last year overturned a decades-old exemption for ultra-Orthodox students, a policy established when the community comprised a far smaller segment of the population than the 13 percent it represents today.
Military service is compulsory for most Israeli Jews from the age of 18, lasting 24-32 months, with additional reserve duty in subsequent years. Members of Israel’s 21 percent Arab population are mostly exempt, though some do serve.
A statement by the military spokesperson confirmed the orders on Sunday just as local media reported legislative efforts by two ultra-Orthodox parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to craft a compromise.
The exemption issue has grown more contentious as Israel’s armed forces in recent years have faced strains from simultaneous engagements with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Iran.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders in Netanyahu’s brittle coalition have voiced concerns that integrating seminary students into military units alongside secular Israelis, including women, could jeopardize their religious identity.
The military statement promised to ensure conditions that respect the ultra-Orthodox way of life and to develop additional programs to support their integration into the military. It said the notices would go out this month.
The post Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich sharply criticized on Sunday a cabinet decision to allow some aid into Gaza as a “grave mistake” that he said would benefit the terrorist group Hamas.
Smotrich also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing to ensure that Israel’s military is following government directives in prosecuting the war against Hamas in Gaza. He said he was considering his “next steps” but stopped short of explicitly threatening to quit the coalition.
Smotrich’s comments come a day before Netanyahu is due to hold talks in Washington with President Donald Trump on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day Gaza ceasefire.
“… the cabinet and the Prime Minister made a grave mistake yesterday in approving the entry of aid through a route that also benefits Hamas,” Smotrich said on X, arguing that the aid would ultimately reach the Islamist group and serve as “logistical support for the enemy during wartime”.
The Israeli government has not announced any changes to its aid policy in Gaza. Israeli media reported that the government had voted to allow additional aid to enter northern Gaza.
The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The military declined to comment.
Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid for its own fighters or to sell to finance its operations, an accusation Hamas denies. Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe, with conditions threatening to push nearly a half a million people into famine within months, according to U.N. estimates.
Israel in May partially lifted a nearly three-month blockade on aid. Two Israeli officials said on June 27 the government had temporarily stopped aid from entering north Gaza.
PRESSURE
Public pressure in Israel is mounting on Netanyahu to secure a permanent ceasefire, a move opposed by some hardline members of his right-wing coalition. An Israeli team left for Qatar on Sunday for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
Smotrich, who in January threatened to withdraw his Religious Zionism party from the government if Israel agreed to a complete end to the war before having achieved its objectives, did not mention the ceasefire in his criticism of Netanyahu.
The right-wing coalition holds a slim parliamentary majority, although some opposition lawmakers have offered to support the government from collapsing if a ceasefire is agreed.
The post Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during a press conference with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Aug. 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy
Australian police have charged a man in connection with an alleged arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue with worshippers in the building, the latest in a series of incidents targeting the nation’s Jewish community.
There were no injuries to the 20 people inside the East Melbourne Synagogue, who fled from the fire on Friday night. Firefighters extinguished the blaze in the capital of Victoria state.
Australia has experienced several antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023.
Counter-terrorism detectives late on Saturday arrested the 34-year-old resident of Sydney, capital of neighboring New South Wales, charging him with offenses including criminal damage by fire, police said.
“The man allegedly poured a flammable liquid on the front door of the building and set it on fire before fleeing the scene,” police said in a statement.
The suspect, whom the authorities declined to identify, was remanded in custody after his case was heard at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Sunday and no application was made for bail, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
Authorities are investigating whether the synagogue fire was linked to a disturbance on Friday night at an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne, in which one person was arrested for hindering police.
The restaurant was extensively damaged, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella group for Australia’s Jews.
It said the fire at the synagogue, one of Melbourne’s oldest, was set as those inside sat down to Sabbath dinner.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog went on X to “condemn outright the vile arson attack targeting Jews in Melbourne’s historic and oldest synagogue on the Sabbath, and on an Israeli restaurant where people had come to enjoy a meal together”.
“This is not the first such attack in Australia in recent months. But it must be the last,” Herzog said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incidents as “severe hate crimes” that he viewed “with utmost gravity.” “The State of Israel will continue to stand alongside the Australian Jewish community,” Netanyahu said on X.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese late on Saturday described the alleged arson, which comes seven months after another synagogue in Melbourne was targeted by arsonists, as shocking and said those responsible should face the law’s full force.
“My Government will provide all necessary support toward this effort,” Albanese posted on X.
Homes, schools, synagogues and vehicles in Australia have been targeted by antisemitic vandalism and arson. The incidents included a fake plan by organized crime to attack a Sydney synagogue using a caravan of explosives in order to divert police resources, police said in March.
The post Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue first appeared on Algemeiner.com.