The IDF’s New Recruits?
As small but growing numbers of Haredi men enlist in the Israeli military, attitudes in their strictly observant communities start to shift?
Haim Traitel reclined in bed in a third-floor room at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba on a late-October afternoon. During a two-hour interview, he discussed the battle injury he suffered the previous week in the Gaza Strip, his service in the Israel Defense Forces, and his motivation for enlisting.
Traitel spoke on the record and OK’d his photo appearing with this story. But he declined to name the specific Hasidic sect to which he and his family belong, beyond saying that it’s an “important” group in the Haredi-majority town of Bnai Brak, where he lives with his parents, brother, and sisters.
The 19-year-old sergeant plans to return to his unit after recuperating. Haim’s father, Moshe, plans to host a seudat hodaya, a thanksgiving feast—a traditional celebration after someone survives a life-threatening circumstance—and expects no problem in renting a hall for the occasion, but he’s sure the community’s leadership won’t attend.
That’s because military service is not encouraged where they live, Moshe told me while visiting his son the same day. For that reason, Haim added, he’s sure he won’t be asked to speak about his Gaza experiences at the family’s synagogue or the schools he attended.
Haim grew up knowing little about life beyond Bnai Brak, a city of more than 200,000 bordering Tel Aviv. He attended yeshiva, but wasn’t studious. He secretly bought a smartphone—Moshe, himself holding a smartphone during our interview, smiled at his son’s daring—and went online to learn about politics and national affairs. He read about the IDF and watched videos of soldiers’ exploits.
“I saw heroes with weapons,” said Haim. “It fires you up. When there was a terrorist attack, I’d say, ‘I’m enlisting.’ When there wasn’t, I didn’t. It hurt me that I wasn’t taking part in the [country’s] defense.”
Haim was fortunate to receive his parents’ support, and their hugs, when he announced at age 17 his intention to join the IDF. They attended the ceremonies when he was sworn in and completed basic training.
The reality of life for an IDF soldier from Bnai Brak, as in many Haredi (strictly observant) communities, is complex, even after Haim nearly was killed in Jabalia by a Hamas sniper’s bullet from behind that tore a muscle, exited his left shin, required seven stitches, and necessitated a monthslong rehabilitation.
And their community, Moshe and Haim explained, is—on the Haredi spectrum—relatively liberal.
“Is the blood of Haredim worth more?” reads a sign hanging from an overpass on Highway 7, east of Ashdod.
The question was jarring and ironic, given that I passed it while driving to meet this Haredi teenager who nearly was killed defending Israel.
The message apparently was painted by a secular Jewish Israeli upset by Haredim not sharing the burden of military service—specifically, fighting in the ongoing wars in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon that, as of Nov. 5, have taken the lives of 780 Israeli soldiers and other security personnel. Israeli governments since 1948 have allowed Haredim to study full time in yeshivot and skip IDF service that’s otherwise mandatory for Jews and Druze. But many Israelis have long resented what they see as Haredi abuse of the system to also exempt those not studying Torah full time.
“The sign is very, very painful,” Traitel said when I told him of it. “I understand the pain. There are not many like me.”
An IDF spokeswoman said figures aren’t available on how many Haredim are serving in the military. Experts estimate the number in the low thousands, minuscule in a population of 1.3 million Haredim.
The simmering social pot has been boiling over the past six months due to the long stretches, some more than a year, served by IDF reservists in the ongoing wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The renewed friction led the Supreme Court to rule in July that authority for the exemptions had lapsed and that draft notices must be sent to approximately 60,000 Haredi men. Three thousand notices went out—Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced last week, before he was fired from his post, that 7,000 more would be sent—but only a fraction of those summoned showed up at induction centers.
Anti-draft demonstrations continue to be held in Haredi areas. And last week, Haredi members of Knesset were threatening to withhold their votes for a national budget if a draft-exemption bill isn’t passed.
The issue continues to anger—and not only secular Jewish Israelis are venting. Resentment has come recently from the religious-Zionist (akin to modern Orthodox in the United States) camp, usually among Israel’s most unity-preaching sectors.
One such member, Rachel Goldberg, spoke emotionally during the shiva for her husband and the father of the couple’s eight children, Avi, killed in battle in Lebanon on Oct. 26.
Israel is at war “against accursed enemies, and many people wear green uniforms and join to fight in God’s army, the IDF, but we don’t have enough people,” Goldberg said in a video clip posted on Facebook. “I want to call on people learning Torah and not serving in the military to enlist in the Jewish people’s military.” She drew a parallel with pre-Shabbat preparations: “It’s not that one person sits at the table, praying that the house will be clean. Everyone must clean. Everyone must stand and act and exert one’s body. And whoever doesn’t—it’s not educational, not Jewish, not moral to give him something,” Goldberg said, referring to governmental subsidies for yeshiva students.
Rabbi Menachem Bombach, whose organization, Netzach, runs Haredi schools teaching secular subjects alongside Judaic studies, said in a phone interview: “There is an ethical and moral price for not participating in defending the Jewish state. … If this is your way, it is very selfish.”
Bombach served in the IDF, as did his son. “There’s now an awakening,” Bombach said of Haredim, of which he is one. “It’s not enough, but it’s a change.”
The social tension comes as Haredi opposition to IDF service appears to be softening, at least in the short term, due in part to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, murderous rampage across the western Negev that stirred Haredim emotionally. That’s the view of several community members interviewed for this article, including one who mentioned Haredim murdered that day. Haredim have visited those recovering from the attacks and soldiers wounded in battle, cooked for deployed soldiers, and donated needed products. Some interviewees reported Psalms and other prayers now being recited in their synagogues for the IDF’s success and for wounded soldiers’ recovery.
From there, they said, it’s less of a leap to Haredi men enlisting and to community members accepting their decisions to do so. But anything approaching broad Haredi enlistment “will take two or three generations,” said Dov Lipman, a U.S.-raised former Knesset member who is Haredi and whose son served in the IDF.
Tel Aviv University professor Nechumi Yaffe said she detects Haredi attitudes toward military service changing.
Yaffe and colleague Yael Itzhaki-Braun polled approximately 1,000 Haredim throughout Israel after Russia launched its war against Ukraine in February 2022, then following Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, and then at points throughout the ensuing wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
The researchers asked whether the Haredi public must find a way to contribute to Israel’s defense, and found that affirmative answers jumped from 42% to 63% following the massacre. On whether the respondent personally should contribute to Israel’s military effort, the increase was higher over the same period: from 35% to 58%.
“The stigma [against] people who have served has significantly lowered,” said Yaffe, who is Haredi.
Still, negotiations and court rulings on compulsory military service have not considered any roles for Haredi women. (Druze and non-Haredi Jewish women, particularly in their observant communities, can perform national service, such as in schools or hospitals, in lieu of the military. Otherwise, Jewish women, like Jewish and Druze men, are subject to the draft.)
Anecdotal evidence of change, at least for Haredi men, abounds.
Haredi soldiers were known to change into civvies before returning on weekend leave, lest they face scorn or worse in their neighborhoods. That seems to be changing.
“They’re much less concerned about that post-Oct. 7,” said Karmi Gross, a Miami-raised rabbi in Ramat Beit Shemesh, who founded a program for Haredim that combines military service with both Torah learning and an academic program leading to a professional degree. The program is modeled after the hesder track for religious-Zionist youth, which entails Torah study and military training.
During the recent holiday period, one of Gross’ students told him of entering his synagogue for Mincha prayers in uniform.
“Half of the men started yelling at him to leave the shul. It’s very normal,” said Gross. “For the first time, another group—at least half—started yelling back to say, ‘Leave him alone.’ It’s very significant. Army service does not make you a leper anymore. A lot of that, I think, is the Oct. 7 effect. Once that wall falls, time will have its [further] effect. Are you going to see massive numbers [of recruits] coming? No. That will take time.”
Several interviewees remarked that the IDF now faces a golden opportunity to foster greater Haredi enlistment by enticing, not compelling; by reaching out to teenagers less drawn to yeshiva study; and by meeting the religious-observance needs of Haredim, such as their preferred kashrut for food, dedicated times for Torah study and prayers, and not having males serve with females—needs the IDF has made great efforts to meet since the 1990s in its all-Haredi units, including the three now operating within the paratrooper, Kfir, and Givati brigades. A full-fledged Haredi brigade, Hasmoneans, is due to launch in December.
But
the military environment makes it “inevitable” that religious
observance will be compromised, said Yitzchok Horowitz, 26, who served
in the Haredi paratrooper unit.
Horowitz,
raised in the Haredi neighborhood of Har Nof in Jerusalem, said he sees
the sense in not forcing the issue: “The Haredi community, me included,
believes that, yes, [Haredim] should sit and learn [Torah] because
these people are protecting the Holy Land in a different way.”
A promising conduit to normalizing IDF service for the Haredi sector might be the track known as Phase 2. Revived by the IDF during this wartime period, it enables Haredi men who passed draft age to enlist, undergo two or four weeks of basic training, and serve in combat or noncombat roles. It requires the person to make a five-year commitment of annual reserve duty.
Phase 2 is “an opportunity we must take advantage of, to bring about a breakthrough, to show that Haredim are entering the military—and then youth will enlist,” said Eliezer Safrin, a 44-year-old real estate developer in Beit Shemesh who entered the program in August after six months of pressing the IDF to accept him. “It definitely gives a big sense of satisfaction and belonging, and a feeling of: ‘Why didn’t I do it earlier when I could’ve contributed more?’ If it weren’t for the war, it may not have crossed my mind.”
The track holds promise because participants are older and life-seasoned, less prone to social pressures against enlistment.
“If you draft at 18, they look at you askance. But if you enlist with a wife and family, it’s more accepted. They judge you less,” said David Klaristenfeld, 35, a married father of two and owner of an air conditioning repair business in Ramat Beit Shemesh.
Klaristenfeld had wanted to serve in the IDF in his youth but said he “couldn’t do it” due to his Haredi surroundings. Then came the Oct. 7 invasion and the gruesome videos he watched of Hamas slaughtering Israelis. “This was the chance,” he said. “I jumped at the opportunity.”
He enlisted, trained for two weeks, served for three months in the military forensics center, then patrolled along Israel’s border with Jordan. When Israeli pilots bombed military sites in Iran in late October, Klaristenfeld didn’t hesitate when his commander summoned him—on Shabbat morning—in preparation for a potential Iranian counterattack. “I have secular clients,” he said. “When I say I’ve just returned from reserve duty, they’re in shock. It’s a form of sanctifying God’s name.”
As for Traitel, he aspires, post-army, to study law or political science. Then, he said, he wants to work in the public sphere. “I can be the connection,” he said, “between the Haredi community and general society, to promote Haredi enlistment.”
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/idf-new-recruits-haredi-men
What Matters Now to Haviv Rettig Gur: Rising resentment as Haredi men refuse draft
Speaking about one of the most divisive issues facing Israeli society, ToI’s senior analyst offers perspective — and a potential way out of the problem
Welcome to What Matters Now, a weekly podcast exploring key issues currently shaping Israel and the Jewish World with host deputy editor Amanda Borschel-Dan and senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur.
At the start of the war in retaliation for Hamas’s murderous onslaught on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, the Israel Defense Forces reported that more than 100 percent of reservists called up for duty had shown up — nearly 300,000 reservists in total, marking the largest-ever call-up of reservists in Israel’s history.
This week, we learned that there has been a significant decline in the rate of reserve soldiers showing up for duty and the turnout rate in the reservist units currently fighting in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip has varied between 75% and 85%.
In an effort to bolster the standing army, over the summer, the IDF
Personnel Directorate sent out 3,000 draft orders to Haredi men aged
18-26. Out of those 3,000 men, only around 10% have shown up to be
drafted into the military. (250 showed up)
The IDF’s overall goal for the just concluded draft period — about four months — was 1,300 ultra-Orthodox soldiers. Ultimately it reached just over 900, including those who were drafted outside of the 3,000 new orders.
This means that the IDF has seen an 85% increase in the number of Haredi soldiers joining the army, compared to the same draft period in previous years. However, the military has said that it currently requires some 10,000 new soldiers — 75% of whom will be combat troops.
In our conversation this week, we hear personal anecdotes about the service of Borschel-Dan and Rettig Gur’s family this year and how they fit into the broader Israeli experience. We also learn about rising resentment among many segments of Israeli society over the entrenched refusal of Haredim to draft in necessary numbers — and what could be a way out.
So this week, we ask Haviv Rettig Gur, what matters now. Listen to one of the smartest people in Israel!
1 comment:
The 85% number is misleading. If one Chareidi boy enlisted in 2023 and 2 in 2024, that means a 100% increase. Whoopee. We need to see raw numbers.
Here's the solution. Israel wants the hostages back. Israel wants the Chareidim drafted. Howabout Israel makes a deal with Hamas, returns as many terrorists as they want but for each terrorist, one Chareid boy gets drafted?
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