A War Within A War
Friday August 22, 2025 – כ״ח אָב תשפ”ה
There was a short Israeli news clip this week in which two young men in their 20s were pitted one against the other in a quasi-debate style interview. One wore a black suit jacket, a white button-down shirt, was clean-shaven, with slicked-back hair, and a black velvet kippah on his head. The other bore a wispy stubble, no kippah, and a “bring them home” T-shirt, and had recently returned from 4 months straight of reserve duty in and out of Gaza. “I don’t serve in the army,” explained the Kippah-wearer, “because I worry that I won’t be able to maintain my Haredi lifestyle, and that I’ll come out different,” he explained with a smug grin on his face.
This set his co-interviewee off. The secular reservist took a pause, “You know what the difference is between me and you,” he asked calmly, trying to contain his growing resentment.
“The difference is that you are worried that if you [serve in the army] you might not come out Haredi, and I am worried that I might not come out at all!” I’ve lost too many friends and brothers in arms during this war, taken a huge financial hit due to my extensive reserve service, and my inability to work, and my wife and family have had to deal with me being away from home, unable to fulfill my familial duties,” now getting more heated. “I know what the rabbis say, that studying Torah full time is the equivalent, if not greater contribution to the defense of K’lal Yisrael and the Jewish people, but don’t you dare begin to compare the kind of the life and death risk and sacrifice that I’ve had to make with the rigor of full time Torah study.”
The Yeshiva student sat silently with a smug grin on his face, as now the interviewer became increasingly incensed at the blatant inequity of the whole situation.
This past Sunday, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets during a one-day general strike to protest the fact that 22 months into the longest war in Israel’s history, the 50 hostages – of whom 20 are presumed to be alive – are still not home. This strike came at a moment when the Israeli Government is preparing to begin the next phase of the war – a phase which will entail a takeover of Gaza City, as was recently approved by the cabinet, and the army has begun calling up an additional 60,000 reservists. This operation has been widely criticized by the general population and by high-ranking members of the military, as it is highly likely that: our soldiers and reservists will be killed; many Gazan civilians will be killed; and the lives of the hostages will be even more endangered.
Yet, on the same Sunday, many in the Haredi community took to the streets and blocked traffic to protest the draft notices that many of them had received. No, they were not joining in with their fellow citizens and Jews to help fulfill the high-priority mitzvah of redeeming the captives. Instead, they have now declared war on the State, while the State itself is at war – their own holy war within a war.
There is something deeply troubling about the approach of some in the Haredi world who openly disregard the rules and laws of the State of Israel, claiming that those laws don’t apply to them. For them, the structures of civil society—whether taxation or military service — are seen not as the necessary frameworks that allow Jewish sovereignty to flourish, but as obstacles to Torah and halakha (Jewish law). This posture reduces the State itself to a temporary nuisance at best and a heretical rebellion against God’s will at worst. It is an attitude that corrodes the shared project of building a just, functioning society where the Jewish people can live freely and responsibly.
Lest we think that this phenomenon only exists in Israel, we have experienced a similar dynamic emerging when we look at the World Zionist Congress elections and Israel’s National Institutions. In the last five years, the Ashkenazi Haredi party – known outside of Israel as Eretz HaKodesh – has come on the scene to considerable success, gaining tens of thousands of votes and significant representation at the upcoming World Zionist Congress. This is despite an internal Haredi controversy regarding participation in the Zionist institutions. Since the founding of the Zionist Movement, many ultra-Orthodox Jews reject the modern Jewish State out of a belief that only God—not human political movements—can bring about Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. Any attempt to do so prematurely is a violation of Torah and messianic faith. Others oppose it because they view the secular nature of the Zionist state as a threat to authentic Jewish law and tradition (Torah and Mesorah).
Due to their rejection of the secular State, Haredi parties have generally participated only when it serves their narrow institutional interests. At times they have altogether rejected the very premise of Zionism. They leverage the system when it is convenient, securing funding and influence—while denouncing its legitimacy and refusing to shoulder the collective responsibilities that come with it. It is an approach that undermines the sense of mutual accountability that Zionism demands and that Jewish peoplehood requires.
What’s more, a widespread cheating scheme disrupted the U.S. elections for the World Zionist Congress earlier this year. Several right-wing, ultra-Orthodox slates committed fraud, resulting in over 17,500 fraudulent votes and more than $85,000 in fraudulent registration fees. The election body within the Area Election Committee (the governing body of the WZC elections) took appropriate action, cancelling these fraudulent votes and imposing penalties as a just recourse (beyond throwing out the fraudulent votes). However, the perpetrators appealed this decision to a tribunal of a lower Zionist court, which, in a baffling miscarriage of justice, struck down the penalties. Now, several slates that ran fair campaigns, including the Reform and Conservative Movements, are in the process of appealing this decision before the Zionist Supreme Court, with final say on the matter.
This matters because the World Zionist Congress allocates over $1 billion annually to programs and initiatives that support global Jewry, including here in North America. Any effort to exert unearned influence over this budget should be exposed for what it is – fraud.
For those of us who believe in a Judaism that embraces both Torah and democracy, both covenant and citizenship, this challenge is not peripheral—it cuts to the heart of our vision. The State of Israel, the Zionist institutions that sustain it, and the laws, rules, and precepts that govern it, are not barriers to Torah, but essential vessels for it: imperfect, human, evolving, and in need of critique, but ultimately sacred in their potential. We cannot allow a faction of our people to benefit from the system while dismissing its laws, nor can we allow Jewish sovereignty to be hollowed out by those who reject its very legitimacy.
I want to be clear: my words are not anti-Haredi. I respect the devotion, discipline, and commitment to Torah that so many in the Haredi world embody. What I am calling for is fairness—for a society in which every citizen contributes, shares responsibility, and has the freedom to live in accordance with their own convictions. In the spirit of Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative, we must build a society whose rules are just and could be applied universally, where no group claims privilege without also accepting obligation. We dream of a day when all people, regardless of their path, could dedicate themselves fully to study, prayer, or creative pursuit if they so choose—each according to their faith, their belief system, and their understanding of what it means to live a life of holiness and meaning. But so long as we face serious existential threats, we sadly must shelve that dream, and all must contribute equally.
Shabbat Shalom and Hodesh Tov!
