Yehoshua Pfeffer
The question of Haredi military service in Israel has always been about more than the army, and the war has made that unmistakable.
On this episode of Identity/Crisis, Yehuda Kurtzer is joined by Yehoshua Pfeffer, a rabbi and public thinker working on questions of Haredi citizenship, work, and service, to unpack why the draft debate has become so volatile since October 7, and why the IDF is more than an institution: it’s a crucible of Israeli identity. Together they explore the fears driving Haredi resistance to the draft, the anger and exhaustion felt across Israeli society, and whether change can happen through trust and politics rather than coercion—before the bonds of kinship and shared fate wear too thin to hold.
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Note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a conversation, please excuse any errors.
Yehuda: Hi everyone. Welcome to Identity/Crisis, a show from the Shalom Hartman Institute creating better conversations about the essential issues facing Jewish life. I’m Yehuda Kurtzer. We’re recording on January 29th, 2026.
I have a cousin who lives here in Jerusalem. I love him, though we haven’t been in touch in a little while, and I doubt he listens to this podcast. He is the head of an ultra-Orthodox yeshiva. I follow some of his work and I’m really proud of him that he has reached this place in his career. I believe deeply in Torah study and in Jewish education, and I think of us both as in roughly speaking the same line of work, but beyond that, beyond the fact that we share uncles and aunts and especially our beloved grandparents, there’s not a lot we hold in common.
I remember spending Shabbat with him a few times when I was a Yeshiva student here in Israel in a very different Yeshiva than his, and even our conversations about Torah felt like they were taking place on different planets almost in an entirely different language, even though we were both speaking English.
I recognize that for some listeners outside the observant Jewish world, it may seem crazy that the two of us hierarchically observant Jews would feel ourselves so far apart from one another. But I don’t think it’s just the narcissism of small differences. The differences between us, which seem today virtually unbridgeable lie in how we see our relationships to the world around us, and what political, social and moral obligations befall us based on those relationships. There are too many such differences to count, and those differences are both ideological and material.
Perhaps the most visible and controversial of those, the one that is the stuff of escalating tensions here in Israel, is that neither he nor his sons nor his sons-in-law have or will serve in the Israeli army. They’re beneficiaries of the state’s infrastructure, but on this issue, they will not be contributors.
Now, I can’t really claim that that difference between us afflicts me. I too have not served in the IDF. I live in New York. I too, as a Zionist outside of Israel, benefit from a state of Israel whose security depends on the sacrifice of others. Therefore, this difference for me, between us feels more like an ideological issue than an emotional one.
But I know that that’s not how some of my other cousins in Israel feel about our shared cousin. I have a different first cousin here in Israel who I also love, who spent hundreds of sleepless nights these past two plus years as her son and her son-in-law fought in Gaza. And I struggle to imagine how she must feel about her fellow Israelis, especially those that are her own relatives, whose refusal to make that sacrifice amplifies the very sacrifice that she and her family have to make.
We, me and my cousins, and by metaphorical extension, all of us, we’re held together by this bond of kinship, which is sometimes the strongest bond we have, and sometimes like a tenuous accident of history and as it’s gradually worn down by our competing commitments, you have to wonder whether it will hold.
This week in Israel some colleagues and I participated in a seminar together, struggling over the idea of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. My colleague Shraga Bar-On invited us to read a text by David Ben Gurion written in 1954 in which he was trying to formulate one of his signature ideas, forging a sense of mamlachtiyut for Israeli society.
Our colleague Masua Sagiv defines —a very hard word to explain in English—as “the political notion of an inclusive sense of statehood.” This would be a sense of statehood in Israel’s case, in which all of the state’s citizens can participate regardless of their other identities. That sense of statehood is thick, complex, and multi-layered, rooted in a story encompassing members of all faiths and nationalities. And in being thick, it would be able to withstand the calls for this or that alternate identity to prevail.
So trying to make the case for this, Ben Gurion writes the following. He says, “No state can exist without governance, coercion, and majority decision unless it’s a totalitarian state ruled by a single authority. But no state can exist solely by governance, coercion, and majority-ruled vitality. Strength and integrity of a state are drawn from the general will of the people, from their shared historical needs, from mutual responsibility, from an inner unity that bridges contradictions and tensions.”
And then he gets to the specific challenge of the state of Israel, and he says, “The divisions of hearts and opinions in matters of faith and religion, places both sides, the religious and the secular, who desire the continued existence of the state under an obligation to understand one another, to respect each other’s feelings and convictions, and to relate to one another, not merely with tolerance, but with respect and trust.”
“Both sides,” Ben Gurion says, “are convinced that they’re faithful to the sources and roots of Judaism, yet both must live together and build together the people in the state without either compelling the other to accept its view.” It was, like many things Ben Gurion said and wrote and did, characteristically ambitious for that early state of Israel that needed everyone on deck. And it’s fair to say that maybe it worked for a while.
The current ultra-Orthodox draft controversy, however, which has intensified since October 7th, as the needs for more soldiers and the fears about Israel’s security have increased, and as the ultra-Orthodox community has remained broadly recalcitrant about brooking any change to the status quo in which they’re exempted from Army service for the purpose of state-supported Torah study. Absent a successful negotiation that is divorced from pure political needs of keeping ultra-Orthodox parties in the government, which aggravates tensions on this issue, it’s not surprising to see a rise in efforts to do exactly what Ben Gurion hoped wouldn’t happen, a move towards coercion. And you have to wonder, is it only a matter of time?
I’m grateful today to have a guest with me, Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer, to help unpack the complexity of this issue in Israeli society, to learn about it, and to understand what is happening and what will happen. Yehoshua Pfeffer is the head of the Iyun Institute, focused on promoting Haredi integration and responsibility. He’s a community rabbi in Ramot, Jerusalem, a Dayan, and a founding editor of Tzarich Iyun, a journal of Charedi thought and ideas, many more affiliations, a very profound career. I’m grateful that you’re here to help talk about this and work it through.
I wonder if we can start by you helping to understand the moment that we’re in, in this story of this controversy. I, I remember we’ve been talking about this for decades actually. The future inevitability of a real clash about whether this would be able to hold, especially as the Charedi community has grown in numbers. There’s a myth that in the early days, Ben Gurion and other secularists figured a small amount of exemptions wouldn’t bother the state of Israel in the long term.
So this has been an issue for a long time, but it has felt in the last several years, a deep intensification. I wonder if you could help us understand how we’ve gotten to this point and what the state of play you feel is in Israel right now about this issue.
Yehoshua: Well, first of all, thank you, Yehuda. Thank you for the monologue and thank you for having me on the show. It definitely is a very unique and special moment in the annals of the state of Israel. And of course, it’s deeply related to what we’ve experienced over the last couple of years. The condition of being at war for two years is something which is unheard of in the history of the state of Israel, I dare say the Jewish people, on some level. The war of the Hasmoneans lasted for many years, but it was a kind of guerrilla warfare. We didn’t have the kind of state that we have now.
And this has certainly brought the kind of tensions that were always there on some level between Charedim and the rest to a head. Of course, the primary issue today is army service, and with great justification. Before October 7th, it has to be said, this wasn’t the primary issue. Before October 7th, the main focus of Charedi participation in Israel was actually on the economy. Meaning the, the doomsayers was saying that without participation in the economy and not just participation, but as part of the locomotive of Israel’s economy, we’re not going to be able to sustain the kind of growth which is essential for our survival.
That was a focus prior to October 7th, to the degree that Israel’s finance ministry was suggesting that we should give exemptions across the board from military service to allow Charedim to join the workforce, because part of the equation, this, this weird and funny status quo equation, is that those who are in full-time Torah study get exemptions, but those who aren’t, don’t get exemptions from IDF service. And therefore that is a disincentive for Charedim not to go to work.
So the finance minister was saying, let us allow these Charedim to go to work and we don’t need them in the army. We want a small and technologically advanced army. That was the preconception at the time. The Army itself was not very enthusiastic about admitting there were a headache for the army. The Army was much more involved and enthusiastic about recruiting women into every unit, which is in tension with recruiting Charedim, and therefore, the army wasn’t the main issue.
Post October 7th, the army has become the main issue with great justification, and it’s not just because of the need, it’s also because of the moral issue, which perhaps we’ll get back to later. And the Army happens to be the most thorny and delicate from the Charedi perspective, because you mentioned Ben Gurion.
Ben Gurion was very clear at the founding that the Army has two purposes. One of them is to defend the Jewish people, of course, to defend the Jewish state, the nation state of the Jewish people. Absolutely. But the second purpose. And he was very explicit about this is to provide the melting pot, the place where your Sephardi guy from Beer Sheva will meet your yuppie from Rechavia, more or less where we are here, and develop something shared, a shared concept of belonging, of identity, a shared culture. And that would happen in the army.
Meaning, the army was also the cauldron to create this new Israeli identity, which is divorced from the previous Jewish identity of yesteryear of Europe. It represents, it embodies the transition from powerlessness to power. It represents the transition from the Jew that’s bent over his lectern and studying at night and during the day, and being dependent on the mercy of his host nation to being strong and independent and upright and engaged in agriculture and productivity and army, of course.
And the Charedim were always most afraid of the army because ofits deeply formative nature for young people, 18, 19 year olds. And that’s why the Charedim that want to maintain their identity of continuity from everything that there was before. The Charedi Yeshivot, you mentioned before study, but it’s characterized in a different way. The Charedi Yeshivot are all named after places in Europe, whether it’s Mir, or Slabodka, or Grodno, or Ponevezh or anything. While, by the way, all that Tzioni Yeshivot, none of them carry those names. They’re all modern Israeli names, named mainly after places, towns, settlements in the land of Israel. So of course that difference is not just the difference of nomenclature. That’s a difference in essence.
And the Charedim say, yes, we want continuity. We don’t want to cross lines from the Charedi line of continuity to the parallel line of being Israeli and being in this different mental state of what it means to be Jewish. It really is a very fundamental issue, and that’s why we’ve come to this special moment here because the demand for Army service is today, like never before. And again, with a lot of justification. We can definitely understand this after two years of war. YThat’s a tremendous demand from the Charedim.
The Charedi leadership understands that if there will be significant entry of Charedim into the IDF, then Charedi society will not be the same. It will change dramatically, even if you’re going into Charedi units, where you get Mehadrin food, that’s part of the story. Yes, we want to be able to maintain a high level of religious observance and so on, but that’s only part of the story. The deeper part of the story is your sense of identification, your sense of belonging, your sense of duty, your sense of responsibility. Everything stands to shift, hinging on this issue of entry into the IDF, and that’s really why things are coming to such a head today.
Yehuda: Yeah. You have two different pieces that I think are really important. I wanna pull apart. We’re gonna come to what you’re describing as a kind of fear of the flattening or the transformation of Charedi identity. But I wonder if we could start outside of the Charedi community with the Israeli public, which has become more and more angry at the Charedi community. There was always resentment in the society about Charedim not being in the workforce, being dependent on the largesse of the state and the support of the state. But as you are noting, it shifted from being frustrated about non-contribution to the economy, to non-participation in the army pretty dramatically.
I wonder if you can help articulate how much of this is about a kind of righteous anger. When Moses says to the two and a half tribes, we wanna stay over the line outside of the land of Israel, and he says, your siblings are gonna come in to fight this war and you’re gonna stay there, that doesn’t start from a place of “we need them.” It starts from how is it that you’re making us wield this burden? So how much of it is that and how much of it is a genuine need for actually just bodies to fight in the army?
And I, it’s, you know, I don’t know if you can exactly identify where one of these criticisms begins and the other one ends. But I’m wondering if you have a sense of that as part of the public discourse about this issue from the non community.
Yehoshua: Of course. Well, I, I would say the following, the demand for Charedi army service comes, I think from, I would say three main arguments or three main points. One point is of course, a point of need and that really did switch. The, the main need before October 7th was defined or constituted in terms of economic participation. And that’s still there, by the way. We still need economic participation.
However, post October 7th, the army began to really suffer under the burden of requiring more soldiers. The, the numbers, and I say this with a really heavy heart, but the numbers of wounded, many of course, tragically also lost their lives during this war. And, and many, many were wounded. And there was also a realization that we need troops. We need boots on the ground. We actually need many more soldiers than we have. The Army’s talking about two new armies, or two new divisions, meaning thousands, many thousands of soldiers.
And of course, the principle burden or the way Israeli society is really feeling, the principle burden is not with the regular army, but rather with the reserves. And the reserves have been doing hundreds of days of milu’im, and that’s a crazy burden to carry in terms of family, in terms of workplaces, in terms of businesses, in terms of psychological demands and psychological harm.
It’s really not simple, and these are people who are 30, 40, 50 who have been doing this tremendous—and for every reserve, meaning every regular soldier that you have in the army, will be able to allow several reserve soldiers to spend much more time at home. That equation is a simple equation. An army needs a big regular army. You can’t rely just on reserves. It’s been very tough and that’s why this has become such an emotional issue because it’s been so felt, it’s so tangible. We all feel it. Every single family in Israel has direct experience of this, and that’s why the, the issue has become such an emotive one, such a demanding one.
But added to that point though, there’s two ways in which the demand for Charedim to seven, the IDF is expressed. One is in terms of the idea of equality, in Hebrew shivyon banetel, “equality in carrying the burden,” and that’s mainly from the, let’s say, the left wings of Israeli society, that equality is a thing, equality is a value, which they strongly espouse and, and strongly articulate. The courts have spoken for the last three decades about this value in terms of Haredi Army service. This was the reason why the original law, which was called the Tal Law, was struck. It was struck because it doesn’t fulfill the equality burden of legitimacy in the Israeli constitution, or kind of constitution that we have. And that’s one argument. We need equality.
From the more religious parts of Israel, from the more right wing parts of Israel, they don’t speak about equality. They didn’t need equality. What they need is to see that we are a part of it, to see that the Charedim are participating, see that we care to see that we are involved. They don’t need every single Charedi to be in the IDF. We don’t need total equality in any case, there’s no absolute equality. That’s a utopian myth. Tel Aviv is not the same as Modi’in. Modi’in is north of 90% enlistment rates, and Tel Aviv has far lower, still high. But nowhere near your 90-some percent. And Hesder is not the same as your regular Army service. And nevertheless, nobody makes a fuss about that, because it’s not about absolute equality. It’s about being a part of it.
And I think that’s the main, main point post October 7th, what Israel needs to see is that we’re all in this together. And that’s what’s so painful for much of Israel, to not see the Charedim being a part of it, that they’re not there en masse at the funerals—and we should not know of anymore—that they’re not there visiting the sick, that they’re not there participating. There was a moment right after October 7th where we saw this kind of Charedi enlistment, not into the army necessarily, but to participate, to be a part of it, but it didn’t last. And over time, the Charedim kind of drew back. They withdrew from that participation, partially because of this kind of aggressive demand that you have to serve. It’s difficult to map out the exact dynamic, but that’s mainly what Israel needs to see, that we are a part of it.
And that’s what I try to tell my Charedi friends, you know, we can have tremendous Batei Medresh, we can have tremendous strongholds of Torah study that are exponentially larger than anything we had pre-state of Israel. And yet we can be a real, deep part of Israel, including the IDF, including other institutions, including the state mechanisms without compromising our values. And that’s what Israel needs.
Yehuda: Yeah, it’s interesting ’cause it is imaginable that it’s not, that these detentions would’ve been eliminated entirely if the Charedi community, for instance, had responded to October 7th, by saying, well listen, we’re not coming into the Army, but we’re gonna share the burden on the home front. We’re gonna take over on the home front. We’re gonna let the students out of Yeshiva. We’re gonna organize food, we’re gonna make sure that families are taken care of in this time of need. But it was basically silent.
And you know, obviously a piece of this, I don’t know if it’s still active on a daily to day basis, but it is a part of the story that do feel that they are sharing the burden, so to speak, by holding up Torah study and lives of pie on behalf of the Jewish people as a major post holocaust kind of commitment of, as you said, retaining continuity of the past and, and doing spiritual service for the Jewish people.
I think that that wears down, not only on secular Jews, but even on other Orthodox Jews who are participants in the state. And it really wears down when you’re in a state of crisis, like the state of Israel has been in, where there has been obviously massive need on the war front and also tremendous disruption on the home front.
It feels like a tragic mistake from the Charedi community to basically have shown up for like a hot second after October 7th, and then to just go back to kind of business as usual within the Charedi community. How do you explain that? I’m not, I’m not holding you accountable. I’m really just trying to understand it.
Yehoshua: No, sure I understand that and I would just make the following point on what you said. And it’s interesting, sometimes the greater frustration or resentment, sometimes even animosity is actually felt from the kippot srugot, meaning from the Religious Zionist sector and, and the, the right and the more religious than from secular Israel.
Yehuda: Totally, because, they don’t see themselves as any way part of the same spiritual community like there, there’s so other to one another that you know, you’re obviously gonna be more resentful to the people who you have different expectations from.
Yehoshua: Right. So I think there’s, I think one, one could potentially mention two points about that, and I’ll mention it very briefly because I wanna get to your specific question or query. One of them is, yes, the question of language, meaning the Chiloni Israel, secular Israel will say, well, the is speaking a different language. We don’t really understand the language and therefore it’s hard for us to feel any kind of sense of connection, which will also empower this sense of resentment, frustration, and anger. Because, well, we don’t get it, you know, they’re living in, in this wholly different world and it’s a different planet.
But those who are religious, okay, so they say, listen, we get it. We also appreciate Torah study, we also appreciate religious devotion, but we’re trying to do that while at the same time sharing this burden, which is existential and which we all benefit from, because we all have this shared vision of going forward here upon the holy land, the state of Israel, and therefore there’s this greater sense of resentment and so on.
I, I would say furthermore, the religious parts of Israel, they expect the Charedim to be partners. Meaning they’re not afraid of Charedim joining. A lot of secular, Israel is afraid what will happen when the Charedim come in, and therefore there’s a sense of ambivalence, meaning, on the one hand, we need the Charedim to share the burden, but on the other, what’s going to happen when the Charedim come in and share the burden? What will that do to the IDF? What will it do to these institutions that we’ve worked, we quote unquote, historically, have been the ones to establish these institutions in the kind of mold that we saw fit. And all of a sudden, this entry of Charedim into the public sphere, into these institutions, what will that do? We’re afraid of that.
And therefore, the letter from the secular Israel, the Charedim, they look at it as being a little bit insincere. The letter reads, “Dear Charedim, please join us in Israel. Signed, Israeli society.” But the em read another clause: “Please join us in Israel, comma, but provided it’s on our terms.” And therefore there’s more tension there.
But with the Religious Zionists, they say, no, we want the religion part. We’d like to invite you to be partners with us in promoting that, in being a part of this. And therefore there is a division to be made between the language and the reaction and the emotions from those different parts of Israeli society vis-a-vis the Charedim.
Yehuda: I’m gonna interrupt your tangent with a tangent and then we can go back to the original question, which is, when I was in Yeshiva, in Yeshivat Har Etzion in Alon Shvut, my teacher Rav Aharon Lichtenstein of blessed memory, I remember a talk he gave, which agitated me at the time for totally different reasons, as will make sense to you, where he said, our closest kindred spirits as Religious Zionist Jews in Israel, are the Charedi community, much more than Reform, Conservative Jews, and secular Israelis. Now, that agitated me because of my pluralistic inclinations, but it was coherent 30 years ago to make that statement. And it underlies exactly what you’re talking about.
And I don’t know whether that same statement would be made today or, or at least if it was made, it would be made as the intro to a sense of frustration—like these are our fellow travelers in the world, but we can’t believe that they’re not actually serving as our fellow travelers.
Yehoshua: Yeah. This is the bus test. You get on a bus, there’s two open seats, one next to a Charedi Jew and one next to a secular Jew. And you as a Religious Zionist person, who do you sit next to? Who do you have a conversation with? Who do you feel deeper partnership with? This is painful, I find deeply painful, I have to say, it’s something which I feel very frustrated about because yes, you know, you, you mentioned in your monologue, in fact, the sense of kinship and the question of how long will this residual kinship, if you want, how long will it last to keep that bond together?
But it’s not just about kinship, it’s about a shared vision. A shared purpose, a shared mission, a shared journey. And that shared journey surely should be felt the strongest, like Rav Aharon said, between people who share very similar, at the very least, convictions in religious terms and so on.
But to get to your question, where are the Charedim on this? The Charedim, or at least the Charedi leadership is simply afraid. It’s anxious. The word Charedi in Hebrew, means charada, anxiety. Of course, it’s taken from the Pasuk, “Hacharedim m’dvar Hashem,” those who are anxious to fulfill the word of God, but there’s anxiety there. Charedi society was predicated on this sense of withdrawal from your modern Western liberal society because of the dangers of involvement with it.
Modern Orthodoxy has its own approach or strategy toward that danger. And we could call it education. We’ll educate our youth to take the good and to reject the bad. Charedim say good luck with you on that project, but that’s a scary proposition, because who says that they’ll take the good and reject the bad? Maybe they’ll do the opposite. They’ll take the bad, reject the good. It’s a dangerous arena to be in. So Charedi society is predicated on that concept of withdrawal or isolationism from that world.
And October 7th, what was the moment, and seeing all of this reaction on the part of Charedim to be a part of it, whether it’s in the ZAKA or in the Hatzalah people. And by the way, these people became heroes of Israeli society. In those days after October 7th, there was this tremendous outburst, a pouring of unity, a sense of we’re all in this together. And it didn’t last very long, but we go back to it with nostalgia.
But for the Charedi leadership, that itself comes with a sense of, of threat. It comes with a sense of alarm. Where is this leading? Because if we’re all in this together, then where does that place us? Meaning where does it place that Charedi identity?
I remember an article in Yated Ne’eman that came out against the slogan “B’Yachad Nenatzeach.”
Yehuda: We’ll win together.
Yehoshua: We, we shall prevail together. We’ll win together, together. Kind of, “United We Stand,” if you want. And there were two newspapers that I saw, maybe others, but there were two newspapers that I saw that rallied against that slogan. Yated Ne’eman. What was the other one? Guess,
Yehuda: Haaretz?
Yehoshua: Haaretz. Haaretz rallied against, and Haaretz said, we’re not together with them. We’re not together with the settlers. We’re not together with Charedim and we’re not together with these people. And therefore this logo is apostle. We’d like to cancel this slogan. We don’t believe in this slogan. And the Yated Ne’eman, at the very least, which is kind of the ideological trumpet of Charedi, litvish Charedi leadership, said the same, said, no, this “beyachad nenatzeach” slogan is dangerous.
Because don’t forget, part of that isolationism withdrawal is a matter of identity. You ask a Chassid on the street, who are you? And he’ll say, well, I’m a Vizhnitz chassid. And you’ll ask a Gerrer Chassid and he’ll say, well, I’m a Gerrer Chassid. And the litvish Jew, he’ll say, well, I’m a Charedi guy, or something like that. He’s likely to say that. He’s unlikely to say, I’m a Jew. And secondary identity, I envision it. That’s part of the isolationism.
And this, and certainly being a home front, a great idea by the way. And it’s come up. You’re not the first to raise it. Let the Charedim do the home front, and that will mean they’re deeply participant. They’re a part of it. They’ll be admired by the rest of Israel. And it won’t compromise as much of their values or their way of life because they won’t have to be out there in the field and so on. But that will still mean a radical transformation within Charedi society, and that’s something which the Charedi leadership is afraid of.
I’ll just end by saying that my argument on this is that we are experiencing that transformation anyway.
Yehuda: Yeah, that’s what I want to get to.
Yehoshua: Meaning it’s not going to help. We’re anyway, becoming Israeli. I’m happy to expound on that if we’ll have time. But we’re anyway, becoming Israeli. We’re anyway becoming a part of Israel in the deepest possible sense, and therefore we need to adjust our strategy in order to allow us to, on the one hand, maintain, preserve those core values while at the same time rising up to this challenge. If we’re going to be there anyway, then we should take the high road and try to translate some of those values into Hebrew to be able to share them with others to be able to participate in the dialogue, in the conversations about the future of Israel.
Yehuda: So this is really important to talk about. You know, the way you expressed this in the Wall Street Journal last summer was the underlying fear is broader, that widespread service will change the soul of Charedi society.
But as you argue, it’s already happening and it’s hard not to see it in just the broad manifestations of Charedi society. I mean, there is no such thing as Charedi society. There are a whole variety of ways that assimilation or acculturation, whatever you wanna call it, accommodation is taking place.
In fact, it’s always been a myth of assimilation, which is, there’s the version that you talk about, which is the boogeyman. And then there’s the subtle processes by which people are adapting and modifying their behaviors in relationship to their surrounding. And oftentimes the most interesting thing to ask is like, what are the differences between what you think you’re trying to prevent and what’s taking place organically?
My favorite story to this effect is a story that’s cited, I think by Avi Ravitzky in his Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism book about Rav Velvel Soloveitchik—
Yehoshuah: The Brisker Rav.
Yehuda: The famous Brisker Rav, who ended up here in Jerusalem, died in 1959. It’s a story that’s cited, probably apocryphal, from the fifties in which he’s walking down the street with one of his students and sees two ultra-Orthodox men publicly criticizing the state of Israel, something about its government. And Rav Velvel turns to a student and says, those two men are Zionists. You know this apocryphal story? And a student says, of course they’re not Zionists. What are you talking about? And he says, any Jew who feels so at home in their society that they can publicly criticize the government without fear of retribution, shows that they have, basically, they’re Zionists, because they’re at home.
And that, by the way, every time I see huge Charedi protests against the government, I, I’m like. who—the very act of being able to mobilize your own political power, use your voice, all of this stuff shows that you are partaking of the discourse of this society in one way, even as you’re insisting that you’re being repressed by that same society. So there’s something very subtle here about the already transforming nature of Charedi Judaism.
And I wonder if you could unpack, is the army just like the boogeyman, like it’s now become enshrined as something that represents a threshold that can’t be crossed? Or do you think that there will just be a subtle process by which this, in the same way that many Charedi do participate in the economy and do read Israeli newspapers and do speak Hebrew, like it will just gradually happen, ’cause it’s kind of been happening on every other front already?
Yehoshua: Yeah. So let me try to unpack that a bit.
Yehuda: Yeah, please do.
Yehoshua: I mean, it’s a great point and very important I think, to think about this. By the way, the story that you mentioned, the, the version that I’ve heard is that the Brisker Rav, Rav Velvel Soloveitchik said this about Rav Amram Blau. Rav Amram Blau, of course was a close partner and associate, and he was a very anti-Zionist person, so was the Brisker Rav. But Rav Amram Blau engaged in demonstrations and the Brisker Rav apparently accused him of being Zionist. And he said, you’re a Zionist. And he said, how dare you accuse me of being a Zionist? He says, well, if you have the confidence to demonstrate on the streets, that demonstrates that, that you’re at home over here and you’re with them.
But I would say this is the price you pay for success. Success in two ways. I think this is a success story in terms of Israel and in terms of the Charedim. These are two success stories. Israel, at inception, one of the reasons why the Charedim made this decision—again, how consciously was it made? How deliberately did it happen?
I don’t know, but the Chazon Ish, who was one of the great rabbinic leaders in the time of the inception of the state of Israel, so he’s on the record saying, you know, they’ve managed to take control over this strip of land, but who says it’s going to last? He said, well, in, in his words, well, this is the way it’s quoted, anyway, he said, it’s a group of banditim, bandits. They’ve taken over the land. But who says it’s going to last? And therefore, who says it’s worthy of our investment? We need to invest in our 3000 year old tradition. We need to go on, as we did before, passing on that tradition, passing on that heritage from father to son, from mother to daughter, and do what we’ve always done and the state of Israel. Let’s see what will become of it.
Well, let’s see what did become of it, right? It became this thriving society with a strong economy and an impressive military. The envy of the region, defeating its many enemies from all around, a miracle in gathering millions of Jews, biblical, really biblical stuff. Unbelievable. That’s Israel, on the one hand, and Israel became so good that the Charedi almost inevitably identify with Israel because we are proud of Israel. Israel is so good that you can’t not be a part of it, that you can’t not participate. When we see Israeli success on the battlefield or on the sports pitch, there’s a sense of pride. Even for your Charedim. Okay, how aware are they of what’s going on on the sports field? More than you would believe. Okay. Because we, we we’re aware we are there.
And on the other hand, there’s the success of the Charedi story. The Charedi line, like these two parallel lines if you want, the Charedi line started off being a very thin line, 2% or two point a half percent of Israel’s population at inception. Today, that line, this line of perpetuation, of what there was, of this isolating organizing idea from the rest of society, that line has grown from two and a half percent, let’s say, to 15% of Israel’s population. And if we look at first graders, it’s much bigger than that. And that’s an incredible success.
But that success, by definition means that you won’t be able to isolate the way you can when you’re a small community. If you’re Amish, you can isolate. If you’re just Israel, then you can’t. And if Charedi women, as an example, used to be the school teachers of the state and really held out till the late eighties or something.
You know, my wife studied in a Charedi high school and she is a qualified teacher. She never intended to spend one day in a classroom, but that was what Charedi did. In fact, till today, Charedi high schools are not called high schools. They’re not called tichon. They’re called seminar. Why? All Charedi women become teachers. That’s the myth, but that used to be true. But post-1990, let’s say, that broke dow, ’cause the profession became saturated.
And, and what do Charedi women do today? Well, they’re in every profession, whether it’s computer programming and engineering, whether it’s architecture and interior design and graphic design and social work and psychology, everything. And where do they work? Well, they work at Google and Amdocs and, and MobileEye and, and Facebook and Intel and, and so on. So where’s the isolation? Right? How do you isolate there? And how do you isolate in a digital age?
You know, Bnei Brak has the number one highest, or number two, I don’t remember, volume of internet shopping in Israel. What are you gonna do? You need to buy clothes for your kids, so you’re gonna buy from Next and Shein and other internet, you know, shop at Ali Express. You know, that’s what you’re gonna do. And therefore, all of that led to this blending in terms of identity.
By the way, from Israel also, 20 years ago, Shtisel would not have been possible. Shababnikim. These television series. Look at her and say, yeah, they’re human.
Yehuda: And they have interesting stories.
Yehoshua: Yeah, they’ve got stories. We can do a soap opera about them. Everything’s good. Meaning that blending is something that just, I think, is inevitable over time. But of course I see that though with a religious dimension. You know, I see that with religious overtones.
The Jewish people are not here to isolate. Avraham Avinu, Abraham, wasn’t an isolationist. He called out the name of God throughout his region, wherever he could. He fought a war against the superpowers of the region to rescue his nephew Lot. He argued with Hashem about the destruction of Sedom and he cared about it. He was no isolationist. We’re not here to isolate. We are here to spread the light.
And perhaps there’s something providential here. The Charedim needed this incubation time, you know, when they’re 2% and when Israel is militantly secular, I’m talking marches through Mea Shearim, of youth movements with clubs, you know, telling the inhabitants to quit being so primitive and to join the modern state of Israel, well, then you can excuse this instinct of isolationism, which worked.
But having succeeded in building up this very impressive and robust quote unquote Torah world, well, we have a responsibility to convert this Noah’s Ark into a lighthouse, to to be a part of it, kind of, if you’re familiar with Eim HaBanim Semeicha, Rav Yissachar Teichtal who said, that’s our mission—and he was ahead of his time—but he said, that’s our mission, if we would participate in this movement, we could elevate it. We could bring so much light. I think that’s where we stand today. That’s that moment for me on a religious level.
Yehuda: So that would suggest that it does sound like you’re saying that this assimilation is inevitably happening, and you want to both sanctify that process of something that’s actually very powerful, and it would imply that this could then change the discourse on the army, but for the fact that the opponents of the Charedi community want to push this harder than people wanna handle.
And it almost feels, I, I don’t wanna say it sounds naive that we’ll just get there, because the urgency of this question, Israeli society is forcing the litigation of this issue. And it feels as though the more you insist you need to cross this boundary to come to my side, the more that that boundary just gets lifted higher and is used as the kind of indicator of the assimilation will never be willing to commit to.
Yehoshua: And that’s a fantastic observation. And I think that there’s some truth in that. I don’t think that the kind of absolutist rhetoric that we sometimes hear, let’s say from the Supreme Court. Supreme Court, that’s what courts generally do. It’s black and white. But when the court entered the arena of public policy, meaning entered the arena of the question of the Charedi draft as one example, then I think it damaged the capacity for sincere conversation because that has to be predicated on trust.
Every relationship requires trust. And if you don’t have trust, if you have a sense that the other side is going to admit you, is going to allow you in, but only on condition that you abandon your core values and you become like them, then that hampers, that damages the capacity for real conversation.
At the same time though, meaning not withstanding those issues which are real, and by the way, I think they’re understandable also. Meaning I understand the sense of urgency, I understand the frustration and the anger. I understand also that from a, a secular person’s perspective, the religious elements of this discourse could be scary.
You know, he’s worried that if Charedi—you know, if you give them a finger, they’ll take two hands, and all of a sudden will be walking on separate sidewalks, one for men, one for women, and he’s afraid of that. Meaning it’s up to us, the Charedim, to talk a different kind of of language. Or you know what? Just to talk. The Charedi have never even said, what do we want?
You know, when Litzman, I heard this on the radio interview, Yaakov Litzman, he used to be the health minister under UTJ. He’s a Gerrer Chassid. He was asked, let’s say you get a majority in the, in the next elections, what do you want? What, what do you want? What do you do? What, what’s your game plan? And his answer, I think he’s being sincere. His answer was, “We’ll never be a majority.”
Yehuda: Yeah. Well, that’s convenient.
Yehoshua: And the, and the interviewer, he didn’t relent and he pressed him. He said, okay, let’s imagine. What do you want? And his answer, “we’ll never be a majority.” And you know what? He’s right. Because if we’ll be a majority, then we’ll have to take responsibility. If we’ll have to take responsibility, we’ll have to speak a different language.
Yehuda: That’s right.
Yehoshua: It’ll be a language of—what do we want for the greater Jewish people, not just how do we want to water our back garden of the Yeshiva world? And that is a different language that the Charedim need to speak in order to build trust.
So yes, I’ll, I’ll just finish and say there’s a lot happening from the ground. There’s a lot happening bottom up in terms of Charedi education, all these new kinds of schools where you have robust general education together with Torah education in terms of academic institutions for Charedi, in terms of communities and youth movements, and even for Army participation, yes, there’s a lot happening, but there’s a lot more that could happen. We could expedite that process a lot, if there would be real cooperation, if there would be real discourse, and if the politics would be a bit less caustic and toxic, and it would actually be able to figure out a good incentive structure to encourage this process to actually happen on a larger scale.
Yehuda: So I wanna push back a little bit in terms of your comments about the activist court, because, like, I shared a worldview with you that the better way for society to navigate difference is through democratic culture. You know, we bring our conflict usefully into a public square, and if you can actually conduct a debate in a dialogue that doesn’t resort to violence, but in which people can actually bring their full selves in, you’ll create a society that can navigate difference, produce outcomes, ultimately produce a culture of compromise. That’s the ideal. Wouldn’t that be great?
The problem is of course, that societies also have a very specific urgencies that are tied to timelines, that it’s not just, we can’t have that because our politics are caustic. It’s not just that we can’t have it because we’re hopelessly polarized. It’s also sometimes societies actually have to make resource decisions, right? You can’t simply say, let’s just let a budget discussion between Democrats and Republican Congress go for years while we work out our differences. You, at the end of the year, are gonna have to balance a budget, or you have to pass a budget, rather, and if you haven’t come to an agreement, it’s gonna be the majority rule over the rule of the minority. And the courts play a role in that because they wind up upholding various legislations to that purpose.
So resisting the notion that somebody has to step in and either impose a change or just, you know, pass a majority rule, it feels, I don’t know, it feels like optimistic, but it has no political realism to it. And then the pressure really is increasingly gonna be on the Charedi community to answer the question of what is a piece of legislation that we can live with? And I don’t see that coming from the Charedi community of, here’s not the legislation we would choose, but here’s the compromise that we can live with. And until the Charedi community articulates that they’re really putting themselves under a barrel, because then they’re just gonna be subject to, you know, you could say all you want, I don’t like the activist court, but somebody’s gotta stand up and make a decision.
Yehoshua: Yeah. So I mean, your comments on somebody has to step in, sounds a little bit, you’ll forgive me, sounds a little bit dictatorial.
Yehuda: Of course.
Yehoshua: But who’s gonna step in? Some dictator. We, we don’t want—
Yehuda: Or the people.
Yehoshua: Well, the, the, the people would be great. And that I agree. But the people means through the democratic process, we don’t have any other process. I don’t want somebody else stepping in—
Yehuda: A hundred percent agree.
Yehoshua: And telling people what to do. And sometimes the court seems a little bit too much like that. Meaning they’re recognizing this quote unquote flaw in the Democratic system and they say, okay, we’re gonna take matters into our hands. I don’t like that. And by the way, also, if we judge based on results, the court started to get involved in the issue of the Charedi draft sometime in the late nineties, based on outcomes, it’s been three decades.
Yehuda: Yeah. Hasn’t worked.
Yehoshua: We’re not doing so great. But I do think that things today are reaching that place where the Israeli demographic, the population is going to vote based on that issue.
You know, usually there are more pressing issues to vote on and therefore the question of Charedi participation in Israel, in whichever way, army, economy, society, whatever, got pushed back and then whichever government came in did what it could, usually not much.
However, if that becomes the number one or number two or whatever, very high up on the ladder of Israeli preferences, then yes, then the democratic process ought to be able to take care of that.
And by the way, there are many right now, kind of I would say, organizing processes that are trying to establish a new Charedi political party, and of course I have my own involvement with them, in order to try to find a way forward that will provide a real alternative to the current Charedi political model, which has been a very conflictual one, which has been one that has been very convenient, let’s be honest, for coalitions are very convenient coalition partners, ’cause they say, do whatever you want, we’ll give you free reign, we’ll raise our fingers with whatever you want, just give us X,Y, and Z.
Yehuda: Yeah. They’re the definition of an interest group. They’re so clear about it.
Yehoshua: Very much. Very much so. And therefore they’ve been very stable and very good coalition partners. However, that hasn’t been for the interest or for the benefit of this process of Charedi participation, responsibility for Israel. And today when that’s coming to a head, especially over the extremely delicate army issue, I think it’s time for a different kind of politics that will take this issue and really place it at the top of the pedestal. And so, yeah, we’ll, we’ll see how that plays out. I agree with you that the way Charedi politics is right now, it’s difficult to come up with a legislative bill that will really address the issue.
Yehuda: There are three myths that are oftentimes told by non Haredi Jews that are very self-serving about how this is ultimately gonna resolve itself. One is, I heard it recently, the exodus from the Charedi community is at 20%. Charedi Jews are leaving un mass. The second is meaning, listen, this is gonna resolve itself because of exodus from the Charedi community. The second myth is that there’s a real gap between the leaders and the people. And until it’s possible, look, that could change, and then the will of the people is far more interested in integration to Israeli society than their leaders. And the third myth is if we push the Charedim hard enough, they’ll leave.
I don’t believe any of these myths, but they are out there and, and my guess is that they’re self-serving myths told by non-Charedi Jews to make them feel like we’re ultimately gonna win this story. Do you feel the same way? Is there any truth to any of those myths?
Yehoshua: Well, I would say the first and the third are far from the truth. Meaning yes, there is some percentage within the Charedi space that’s leaving. But in all of the different surveys that have been performed, by far the most stable of any sector in Israel is the Charedi sector. Meaning the kind of surveys that ask your question of how did you grow up and what are you today? So by far and away. Of all sectors, the one that maintains the greatest level of continuity is the Charedi sector. So they’re doing well.
And you know what, even those who quote unquote “leave” Charedi society today, you don’t have to leave. You can carry on wearing your Charedi clothes and, and yet, you can do what you want. There’s, there’s, that space exists within the Charedi space. And then in a sociological sense, you, you remain Charedi. There are some that, that drop out, especially in specific sectors. Children of baalei teshuva, let’s say, have a higher rates of, of what we call, off the derech, who dropout from the Charedi space and certain others. But overall, that’s a myth. Absolutely.
And the third point that you said they’ll leave. What does that mean? Where are they gonna go? Like that’s a ridiculous thing to say, as if they have an alternative. Rav Yiztchak Yosef, now and again he says, well, you know, if you’ll make us serve in the Army, we’ll just leave. What do you mean you’ll leave? Which country is waiting with open arms, saying, “Come, come”?
Yehuda: Yeah, there’s a big visa program in America, yeah.
Yehoshua: Learn Torah with us. You know? Absolutely. So those two are absolute—Margaret Thatcher used to say “cloud cuckoo land.” We would say the second point though, that there’s a power distance between the leadership and the people. Well, not all the people, but certainly the significant changes that have overcome the Charedi space over the last couple of decades, and those are big changes. Those have come from the field. They have not come with the support of the Charedi leadership, both rabbinic and political.
And I’m talking about, for example, academic colleges that were condemned and slammed and shunned by the Charedi leadership, rabbinic, political, both for religious reasons, but also for financial reasons. Don’t forget that there’s a big financial incentive to keep those students within the Charedi institutions, and it didn’t help. These academic colleges have flourished, they’ve prospered and they’re filled with tens of thousands of Charedim.
And the same is true of the, the Mamach schools, not necessarily Mamach as a stream, but schools that also teach broad general studies, girls’ schools that do full matriculations. That’s happened. That’s happening, and that’s happened.
And you see also in society, the diversification of the Charedi space. All of a sudden there’s a strong Charedi presence on X, on Twitter, you know, and even like very Charedi media personalities will say their words on Twitter, meaning things are happening and those things are happening from the field. And the same is true of course, in terms of army participation.
And from my conversations with a lot of the rabbinic, a lot parts of the rabbinic leadership that I’m in conversation with, they get it. Meaning they appreciate that there’s going to be some kind of an intermediate leadership that’s going to push this forward. They just don’t see that it’s their role. They see their role as being a defensive role, a role of preservation, and they’re afraid also, if I’ll say something, then either I’ll be condemned because I’ll be chased by the extremists, which happens, okay, even to the highest level rabbis, number one.
Number two, if I’ll say something, then this Charedi infrastructure, this house of cards can collapse because we don’t do that. We don’t do radical change. It’s not part of our DNA, and therefore they’re happier. That from their courts will hear words of, nothing’s going to change. We’re gonna carry on as usual, no one’s going to the army, but they know full well that it’s going to develop from the field, grassroots, bottom up.
Therefore, you have this dynamic. Is that the way I’d like to see it? Not necessarily. I think we need that rabbinic leadership, because too many of those who are crossing the lines, too many of those who are becoming Israeli, just by force of nature, don’t have guidance. And then they become Israeli in a sociological sense, in a cultural sense. And they start, you know, engaging in, in kind of Israeli life, but they don’t have that, that spiritual engine to keep it going. That needs education, that needs a kind of shift in the strategy and, and that’s not taking place yet. And it’s something that we need.
Yehuda: Let me just give you one last question. You’ve been very generous with your time. One thing that’s been powerful listening to you today is the way in which you have in various places in the conversation used the word “we,” sometimes when you’re talking about being in the Charedi community, sometimes when you’re talking about being Israeli. And you’re a straddler in some sense.
Yehoshua: Yeah, absolutely.
Yehuda: You’re advocating for change within the Charedi community, but at the pace by which the Charedi community can stay consistent to its values, you’re advocating for change within Israeli society. I would just love just a reflection on what that feels like. You know, it’s not easy to find yourself in that position where you are both a change maker, but you’re not trying to be a radical from your own community, and you’re not trying to leave your Israeliness behind. And I’m curious just if you can reflect a little about what that feels like to be trying to articulate a sense of “we” across “wes.”
Yehoshua: Wow. Well, thank you for that question. It’s, it’s a good one. It strikes a chord and it’s also deeply personal. And not to say that I’m not happy to speak about it, but it, it crosses, it’s a, it’s a segue, meaning, from the big issues to the personal story.
First of all, I, I grew up in a place where I didn’t know these divisions. Meaning, sure there were different groups, but they were not as binary. There was no fence or wall to separate between them. They didn’t speak different languages. We were in this together and Israel, even growing up in, in London, and I didn’t grow up like a radically Zionist, but I wasn’t anti-Zionist either. And then Israel was always a miracle. Israel was always like, God’s grace. Like God has given us a homeland where we can go and build something Jewish on a state level. It was always a dream. Israel was a dream.
And when I moved to Israel and I became a part of Charedi society, and I spent all these years really, I would say in an enclave within Israel and tucked away, I never forgot about the home that Israel is. I never forgot about the value of Israel, but without being fully Israeli. And it was only when I took a step out, because I felt that I needed to, I felt that I have the responsibility outside of the Charedi space that I have to discharge, that I have to fulfill, that I really felt the depth of the Israeli belonging when I participated in my first ever Yom Hazikaron ceremony.
And to be honest, it felt a little bit like being a Ba’al Teshuva. Like suddenly I felt this, this energy, like you’re part of this incredible story. And I think it’s a divinely led story. I didn’t look at it in secular terms. I look at this as a, in, in biblical terms. I, I look at this as an unbelievable story, that Hashem has led us through very strange and weird and wonderful paths and roots and means. But I felt such a deep part of it.
And the truth is that that’s the sense that, that I’m trying to convey. My work is predominantly in the Charedi space, but not exclusively. And that’s the sense that I’m trying to convey in this story. There can’t be a “them” and “us,” and when we conceive of it as a “them” and “us,” we threaten to undermine the whole story. Because sure, why should we serve in “their” army? You know, if it’s “their” army, why should we serve there? And why should they support us, in terms of a Torah world, if it’s completely distinct and and unrelated, if there’s a sense of an estrangement, if there’s a sense of otherness between Jews and Israel, then that threatens to undermine the entire project.
And I know. I, I know with full certainty that we’re gonna succeed in this because I don’t think God put us here and brought 8 million Jews back to the ancestral homeland that was given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I don’t think we’re here just to jump in the sea because of infighting. I, I don’t think that’s why we’re here. So I, I have full certainty it’s gonna be good, but it will only be good if people serve as the channel for that good. And that’s where I try to place myself.
And every day I wake up with passion about this. Every day I wake up and sometimes it’s tough. I’m not saying it’s easy. It’s hard work, and it’s hard to be this bridge. It’s hard to try to be this engine of, on the one hand, you could call it change, but I don’t, like you said, I, I don’t envision myself as a social activist of change. The change is happening anyway. What I’m trying to do is to enable it to happen in a positive way, in the best possible way, because the change will happen by force of nature.
But how will they happen is going to decide the fate of this, and for me to be there is on the one hand, yes, it’s challenging and it’s not always easy, but it’s so rewarding. It’s so fulfilling. You feel that you’re at the, the junction, the juncture of the next step of the next chapter that we are writing together, of the history of the Jewish people and and the Jewish state. So I feel very privileged to be in this space.
Yehuda: Thank you for staying there, thanks for doing this work and thanks for coming on the show today.
Yehoshua: Thank you, Yehuda. I really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you.
