Israel’s personal religious war deepens as it battles Hamas

Another shot has been fired in the ongoing internal war in Israel.

The country’s highest court ruled Tuesday that ultra-Orthodox Jews, called Haredim, must submit to Israel Security Forces for the first date. It additionally states that male Haredim will not receive executive investment to study Jewish texts in schools called yeshivas and study halls called kollels.

The ruling — and an immediate agreement by some Haredi Jews to reject it — underscores Israel’s internal conflict between secular and religious forces as it wages war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah’s coalition since the October 7 attacks. Faces intense battle with. Guerrilla on its northern border.

Rabbi Heshi Grossman explained, “One thing is certain: no yeshiva student will abandon his studies to join the army if forced to do so.” newsweek The verdict was later announced through WhatsApp. “We believe that the Supreme Court has overstepped its mandate and should not take over matters of religious life.”

At the root of the dispute lies an exemption dating back to Israel’s founding 76 years ago, which allowed some Haredi men to abstain from regular conscription.

After graduating high school they were supposed to serve as soldiers to their secular friends – both men and women, instead wearing dark suits, white shirts, light-colored round head coverings (kipot) and weighty light kilts. wear clothes. Hats that run the gamut from fedoras to massive beaver-fur headpieces depend on the current and obvious denomination.

Several judges delivered the unanimous verdict, with Acting President of the Court Uzi Vogelmann declaring, “In the midst of a raging war, the burden of inequality is more serious than ever and demands a solution.”

Keeping pace with Israel Harez Newspapers, the law that allowed yeshiva scholars to abstain from military service was set to expire at the end of March, and the prospect of its renewal ended in petitions by both civic groups and 240 private individuals.

According to the federal government, 666 Israeli soldiers have been killed and nearly 4,000 wounded since the war with Hamas began on October 7. Many hundreds of protected troops were called up, all of which further increased tensions between the Haredim and what remained of Israel.

The Hamas-run State Ministry in Gaza says more than 37,000 Palestinians were killed. It is not known how many Hamas members were among those killed.

“We are not necessarily Israeli,” Grossman said during a day at the yeshiva where his business is based. “We don’t automatically believe that Israel has the right to do so.”

“What is the use of their prayers?”

It appears that many Israelis trust the Haredim that the inadequacy of their provider alienates them. Without prompting, families of hostages in Gaza condemned the Haredim for not providing services, even after the October 7 Hamas attack.

“What is the use of their prayers?” Yosef Jucha Engel, grandfather of Ofir Engel, who was held in Gaza for more than 50 days, asked, “Where was God on October 7?”

And among the religious few, it is only the Haredim, who make up 12.5 percent of Israel’s population, who do not provide, although with a birth rate of seven children for every girl, they are growing rapidly.

As Grossman sees it, he and his movement are a continuation of hundreds of years of tradition. Israel’s secular environment is a lowly child – and its lower rating on secularism compared to non-secular principles makes it clearly incomplete.

Grossman expressed a fondness for compromise with an increasingly secular environment. He said the Haredim cannot change the only thing the secular community wants most from them: draft exemptions.

“Let us raise our children,” he said. “Give us our yeshivas.”

This is exactly what surveys show Israel’s survivors do not need. Non-Haredi talk about the Israeli army being fragile, needing additional squads, and wasting resources about the rapidly growing Haredi crowd.

In fact, 97 percent of non-Haredi Israelis would eliminate religious exemptions from military service altogether, according to Hiddush, an NGO that says it campaigns for religious democracy and equality in Israel.

The decision to allow a small group of men to spend their lives doing nothing other than learning about Torah came only a few years after the Holocaust and included a few hundred. Now hundreds of people spend their lives doing this. After the yeshiva comes the kollel, where married men receive a stipend so they can study uninterrupted.

For a backup source of income, other parts of them do a large number of jobs, with an average of 7 children per hour.

Asked whether Haredim have a responsibility to provide security for the secular environment, Grossman’s solution was simple.

“It’s not what we’re good at,” he said.

People in yeshivas and kollels do not know how to paint in global subject matter, nor are they meant to. He said, these issues are for alternative family.

Grossman’s views are not shared by all Haredim. Some say that they should continue to study about it because it is their prayers that made it possible for Israel to live to tell the tale.

Grossman hinted at a possible compromise.

“Not everyone goes to yeshiva,” he said, giving suggestions to Haredi men who cannot do so. In fact, Reuters reports that 10 percent of Haredim volunteer.

When asked about Haredi women, Grossman laughed calmly, and suggested single-sex gadgets where the possibility of sex before marriage could be denied might be OK.

“We Haredi have a siege mentality,” Grossman said. “There is no trust between us,” and the survivors of the Israeli community. “Everyone is trying to win. You want us to stop having kids! What do you want?”

Many non-Haredi Israelis fear that their numbers will soon dwindle in their own country.
“From their perspective, they are right,” Grossman said.

Some Israelis question what would happen if the Haredim were in the majority and were able to impose their views from positions of power. Among alternative viewpoints that do not coincide with the vast majority of the Israeli community, the Haredim are opposed to LGBTQ rights, opposed to premarital intercourse, and believe that the Sabbath must be strictly kept, meaning the entire country by and large. This is what the scale would like to call off sick on Saturday.

“We don’t want to be in charge of this country,” he said. “It’s not what we know how to do.”

However, he said that if the date came, “I don’t know what would happen.”