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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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Sen. Rick Scott Donates Salary to US Holocaust Memorial Museum
US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, Dec. 7, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) announced on Wednesday that he will donate a portion of his Senate salary to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, underscoring what he called the urgent need to combat antisemitism at home and abroad as threats to Jewish communities escalate.
Scott, who has given part of his congressional salary since joining the Senate in 2019, said his gift was motivated by the growing dangers facing Jewish people and the importance of ensuring younger generations understand the Holocaust.
“Ann and I are proud to support the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Years ago, Ann and I brought our daughters to the Auschwitz memorial and museum in Poland because it was so important to us that they learned about the Holocaust and understood the horrors that occurred,” he said in a statement.
“It’s so important that every generation understands the atrocities of the Holocaust, and the museum does an incredible job teaching those lessons to millions of people every year. By sharing the stories of those who survived and those who were murdered, providing critical resources to educators, and reminding each of us what it means when we say ‘Never Again,’ it is a vital institution,” he added.
Scott also recounted taking his daughters years ago to Auschwitz in Poland, describing the visit as an effort to show them the catastrophic consequences of unchecked hatred against Jews.
The senator tied his donation to the approaching second anniversary of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel, the deadliest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages during the onslaught.
“As we approach the second anniversary of Oct. 7, Ann and I are proud to support the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s meaningful work defending the truth of the Holocaust and their important efforts to teach its relevance for today,” Scott said.
Scott’s office did not disclose the specific amount of the donation.
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Texas State University Silent on Status of Professor Who Incited Violent Attack on Jews at Public Library
West Asheville Library in North Carolina. Photo: Screenshot/buncombecounty.org.
Texas State University is refusing to disclose whether it still currently employs a far-left professor who was filmed inciting a riotous assault on three pro-Israel individuals who peacefully spectated an anti-Israel presentation that was held in June 2024 at the West Asheville Library in North Carolina.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, two of the victims, David Moritz and Monica Buckley, are Jewish, and one is cancer patient Bob Campbell, an 80-year-old military veteran. Their assailants kicked, punched, and dragged them out of the event, titled “Strategic Lessons From the Palestinian Resistance,” after Texas State University assistant professor of philosophy Idris Atsu Robinson spotted them in the audience and invited the 60-80 anti-Israel partisans in attendance to decide their fates.
At one point during harrowing footage taken of the incident, Robinson suggested that the encounter could lead to “murder.” At no point did he deescalate the situation and even seemed to find humor in igniting the passions of a mob.
Responding to an Algemeiner inquiry on Thursday, a Texas State media relations official declined to comment on Robinson’s employment status, saying the university “does not discuss personnel matters.”
The university has been asked before to account for its handling of Robinson.
In June, the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department, a pro-Israel nonprofit that seeks to combat antisemitism, notified the school of Robinson’s conduct and rhetoric. According to StandWithUs, “university sources” confirmed that he will not be teaching during the fall semester of the 2025-2026 academic year. However, the university would not comment on the matter “due to the confidential nature of personnel matters,” making it unclear whether Robinson is still employed by Texas State and will teach there in the future.
StandWithUs says Texas State should state Robinson’s employment status, share findings amassed during an internal investigation of him, and produce any previous complaints which accused him of wrongdoing.
“It is critical that universities protect Jewish and Zionist students by refusing to provide a classroom platform to faculty members unlawfully promoting antisemitic hate and violence,” Michael Scheinman, Saidoff Legal Department assistant director of campus and community affairs, told The Algemeiner on Wednesday. “Schools that do not act and fail to implement strong safeguards risk exposing their students to the same hatred and violence suffered by the victims of this attack.”
He added, “StandWithUS Saidoff Legal continues to support the victims of this horrendous hate incident by coordinating with law enforcement, helping to identify masked perpetrators, and urging Texas State University to condemn the antisemitic conduct that contributed to this violence.”
By his own words, Robinson took immense pride in what transpired in Asheville, North Carolina last year. Commenting on the matter the next day while being interviewed on a podcast produced by the organizers of the event, he argued for “popular riots” and “divine violence,” saying explicitly that “terrorists” reserve the right to “take the life of the oppressor.”
“My arms are chewed up,” Campbell, a Navy veteran, told The Algemeiner during an interview which followed the assault. He added that medical staff at a local US Veterans Affairs facility identified “severe contusions” on his body.
“What really upset me — I was [lying] on the floor, and this big guy was on top of me,” Campbell recalled. “The librarian came to the door, looked me right in the eye, turned around and walked back and didn’t do a damn thing. Didn’t call the police.”
The activists proved equally merciless to the other victims, putting Moritz in a headlock and heaving Buckley outside and ordering her not to free herself from their grip.
Expressions of anti-Zionism are escalating to violence more frequently, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.
Earlier this month, Eden Deckerhoff — a female student at Florida State University (FSU) — allegedly assaulted a Jewish male classmate at the Leach Student Recreation Center after noticing his wearing apparel issued by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“F—k Israel, Free Palestine. Put it [the video] on Barstool FSU. I really don’t give a f—k,” the woman said before shoving the man, according to video taken by the victim. “You’re an ignorant son of a b—h.” Deckerhoff has since been charged with misdemeanor battery.
According to the Tallahassee Democrat, Deckerhoff has denied assaulting the student when questioned by investigators, telling them, “No I did not shove him at all; I never put my hands on him.” However, law enforcement charged her with misdemeanor battery and described the incident in court documents as seen in viral footage of the incident, acknowledging that Deckerhoff “appears to touch [the man’s] left shoulder.” Despite her denial, the Democrat noted, she has offered to apologize.
In June, a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they exited an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by a major Jewish organization. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”
Less than two weeks later, a man firebombed a crowd of people who were participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the Israeli hostages who remain imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza. A victim of the attack, Karen Diamond, 82, later died, having sustained severe, fatal injuries.
Another antisemitic incident motivated by anti-Zionism occurred in San Francisco, where an assailant identified by law enforcement as Juan Diaz-Rivas and others allegedly beat up a Jewish victim in the middle of the night. Diaz-Rivas and his friends approached the victim while shouting “F—k the Jews, Free Palestine,” according to local prosecutors.
“[O]ne of them punched the victim, who fell to the ground, hit his head and lost consciousness,” the San Francisco district attorney’s office said in a statement. “Allegedly, Mr. Diaz-Rivas and others in the group continued to punch and kick the victim while he was down. A worker at a nearby business heard the altercation and antisemitic language and attempted to intervene. While trying to help the victim, he was kicked and punched.”
According to the latest data released by the FBI, antisemitic hate crimes in the US have been tallying to break all previous statistical records. In 2024, even as hate crimes decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups have noted that this surge, which included 178 assaults, is being experienced by a demographic group which constitutes just 2 percent of the US population.
A striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims were targeted the next highest amount as the victims of 256 offenses, or about 9 percent of the total.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Europeans Launch UN Sanctions Process Against Iran, Drawing Tehran’s Ire
Satellite image shows buildings at Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, before Israel launched an attack on Iran targeting nuclear facilities, in Isfahan, Iran, May 17, 2025. Photo: Planet Labs PBC via REUTERS
Britain, France, and Germany on Thursday launched a 30-day process to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear program, a step likely to stoke tensions two months after Israel and the United States bombed Iran.
A senior Iranian official quickly accused the three European powers of harming diplomacy and vowed that Tehran would not bow to pressure over the move by the E3 to launch the so-called “snapback mechanism.”
The three powers feared they would otherwise lose the prerogative in mid-October to restore sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under a 2015 nuclear accord with world powers.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the decision did not signal the end of diplomacy. His German counterpart Johann Wadephul urged Iran to now fully cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog agency and commit to direct talks with the United States over the next month.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters the decision was “illegal and regrettable” but left the door open for engagement.
“The move is an action against diplomacy, not a chance for it. Diplomacy with Europe will continue,” the official said, adding: “Iran will not concede under pressure.”
The UN Security Council is due to meet behind closed doors on Friday at the request of the E3 to discuss the snapback move against the Islamic Republic, diplomats said.
Iran and the E3 have held several rounds of talks since Israel and the US bombed its nuclear installations in mid-June, aiming to agree to defer the snapback mechanism. But the E3 deemed that talks in Geneva on Tuesday did not yield sufficient signals of readiness for a new deal from Iran.
The E3 acted on Thursday over accusations that Iran has violated the 2015 deal that aimed to prevent it developing a nuclear weapons capability in return for a lifting of international sanctions. The E3, along with Russia, China, and the United States, were party to that accord.
US President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of that accord in 2018 during his first term, calling the deal one-sided in Iran‘s favor, and it unraveled in ensuing years as Iran abandoned limits set on its enrichment of uranium.
Trump’s second administration held fruitless indirect negotiations earlier this year with Tehran.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the E3 move and said Washington remained available for direct engagement with Iran “in furtherance of a peaceful, enduring resolution to the Iran nuclear issue.”
An Iranian source said Tehran would do so only “if Washington guarantees there will be no [military] strikes during the talks.”
The E3 said they hoped Iran would engage by the end of September to allay concerns about its nuclear agenda sufficiently for them to defer concrete action.
“The E3 are committed to using every diplomatic tool available to ensure Iran never develops a nuclear weapon,” including the snapback mechanism, they said in a letter sent to the UN Security Council and seen by Reuters.
“The E3’s commitment to a diplomatic solution nonetheless remains steadfast.”
Iran has previously warned of a “harsh response” if sanctions are reinstated, and the Iranian official said it was reviewing its options, including withdrawing from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The E3 had offered to extend the snapback for as much as six months to enable serious negotiations if Iran restored access for UN nuclear inspectors – who would also seek to account for Iran‘s large stock of enriched uranium whose status has been unknown since the June war – and engages in talks with the U.S.
Calling the E3 decision inevitable, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said it was an “important step in the diplomatic campaign to counter the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions.”
GROWING FRUSTRATION IN IRAN
The UN process takes 30 days before sanctions that would hit Iran‘s financial, banking, hydrocarbons, and defense sectors are restored.
Russia and China, strategic partners of Iran, finalized a draft Security Council resolution on Thursday that would extend the 2015 nuclear deal for six months and urge all parties to immediately resume negotiations.
But they have not yet asked for a vote.
“The world is at crossroads,” Russia’s deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told reporters. “One option is peace, diplomacy, goodwill … Another option is a kind of diplomacy at the barrel of the gun.”
The specter of renewed sanctions is stirring frustration in Iran, where economic anxiety is rising and political divisions are deepening, three insiders close to the government said.
Iranian leaders are split over how to respond — with anti-Western hardliners urging defiance and confrontation, while moderates advocate diplomacy.
Iran has been enriching uranium to up to 60 percent fissile purity, a short step from the roughly 90 percent of bomb-grade, and had enough material enriched to that level, if refined further, for six nuclear weapons, before the airstrikes by Israel started on June 13, according to the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog.
Actually manufacturing a weapon would take more time, however, and the IAEA has said that while it cannot guarantee Tehran‘s nuclear program is entirely peaceful, it has no credible indication of a coordinated weapons project.
The West says the advancement of Iran‘s nuclear program goes beyond civilian needs, while Tehran says it wants nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes.