Thursday, August 07, 2025

Such Chutzpah! ...and They Don’t Even Realize It!

The Charedi call to war (YWN)
Who says that Charedi leadership is oblivious to the war?! On the contrary  - they are about to be at the forefront of fighting it. The line has been crossed. They cannot countenance the fact that Jews are being attacked by people with nefarious motives, and they have called upon their public to fight this war with everything they have.

That might sound shocking to those who are aware of the Charedi attitude toward the State of Israel in general, and the IDF in particular. But it shouldn’t be. Not because of the IDF’s newly formed Charedi brigades known as Chashmonaim. Which they overwhelmingly oppose  despite the fact that this brigade fully accommodates Charedi needs. It isn’t shocking because they are not talking about the existential war against a mortal enemy being fought by the rest of the Israeli people. They are talking about what they consider a war against the Torah!

The vast majority of eligible young people from every other Jewish demographic in Israel is involved in prosecuting that war, either directly on the battlefield; through vital ancillary services; or because their families that can’t sleep at night worrying whether they will ever see their loved ones alive again! Every demographic - except the Charedi world, whose attitude toward the IDF is that it should be avoided like the plague. So opposed are they to IDF service that they even oppose joining the Chashmonaim brigades - considering it a weakening of their communal dedication to full-time Torah study.

The war they are fighting is much bigger in their eyes than the war in Gaza. It is a war against their young men being drafted. To them, this is the existential threat. This is the war they are fighting. As noted on YWN:

“Roshei Yeshivah, Rabbanim, and public figures in Eretz Yisrael and the Diaspora harshly condemn these escalatory steps as the crossing of a red line in the persecution of the Olam HaTorah. These reckless actions by the State of Israel are liable to severely harm its legitimacy to serve as a representative of the Jewish people.”

That their coreligionists across the full demographic spectrum - from observant to secular -  are risking their lives for the sake of all Jews (including Charedim) is irrelevant in the face of the perceived onslaught that IDF service brings to their Torah world.

And now that a couple of their students who refused to honor their draft notices have been arrested, all hell is about to break loose.

That life and limb have been lost by so many… That countless soldiers are returning from lengthy tours of duty with PTSD… That families have been torn apart after losing loved ones in combat… All of that barely registers as a ‘blip’ on the Charedi radar screen. As long as they can wake up in the morning, daven with a minyan, have breakfast, spend the day in the safety of their study halls, go home, eat supper, and sleep in comfortable beds - only to repeat the cycle the next day - all is well in their world.

But let one of them get arrested for shirking their duty as a citizen of a nation at war, and suddenly it’s a crisis of historic proportions.

It is already well established how deeply resented the Charedi community is by the rest of Israel. Including 65% of all non-Charedi Orthodox Jews, according to a recent poll. I can only imagine the disruption these protests will cause to the lives of people already suffering far more than the protesting Charedim ever have, as a group.

If this community thinks they will get any sympathy for their cause from any other segment of Israeli society, they are making what may be the saddest mistake of their entire 77-year existence as a separate demographic in Israel.

If Israelis were angry before, I would not be surprised if the coming protests increase that anger so dramatically that today's resentment will look like a lovefest by comparison. This includes non Charedi Orthodox Israelis. I am beginning to feel the same way. And see nothing good coming out of these protests. If anything, they are bound to backfire. Big time.