They didn’t have to fight.
In the establishment of Israel in 1948, the leaders of the new nation agreed that the Ultra-Orthodox people would be known as Hared or gods, in Hebrew-being spared of mandatory military services. In exchange, Haredi leaders gave their support to the mainly secular state.
The arrangement was held for the first 75 years of Israel, until the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.
The resulting war in Gaza withdrawn Hundreds of thousands of Israelites In the battle-but barely ultra-Orthodox. Dynamic exacerbated tensions that have been fluttering for years.
The haradim, which average more than six children average, accounts for 14 percent of the nation, compared to 5 percent of 1948. In 40 years are on the track To calculate half of all Israeli children.
As the number of haradi grew, many Israelis became frustrated that their own sons and daughters were sent to the fight as Haredim receives government subsidies for the study of Torah.
Last summer, tensions opened. Under pressure, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that ultra-Orthodox men were no longer exempt from the service. Since then, the army has sent outlines of 10,000 Haredi men. Only 338 appeared on duty.
Israel is now facing one of his brightest and most basic dilemmas: his sect will not serve the fastest growing in the army.
After the Supreme Court’s decision, the New York Times began after three teenagers Haredi who represent different trails for Haredim and Israel.
Chaim Krausz, 19, studies Tore 14 hours a day, just like his father before him. He protested because of the Supreme Court’s decision and believes that the armed service is not only a sin, but also a threat to the ultra-Orthodox tradition.
Itamar Greenberg, 18, a former Ultra-Orthodox Student of Seminary, also protested against the Israeli state, but his reasons are not religious. “They committed a gaza massacre,” he said.
Yechiel Wais, 19 years, also studied once at a seminary, but dreamed of life outside his strict ultra-Orthodox community and went into labor. Then his designs arrived.
“It’s not an entry map of Israeli society,” Mr. Wais said of a position in the Israeli army. “But that is a minimum request.”
Soldier
Growing up, Mr. Wais wore a black and white suit. Like most ultra-Orthodox men, it was practically his only clothing.
But a year for Purim, a Jewish vacation when many children wear costumes, dressed as an Israeli soldier. He lived near the Israeli Air Force Base and loved watching F-16 fighter nozzles behind the fence.
The idea of him, Haredi Boy, growing up as a soldier, felt impossible. “I didn’t even dream of that,” he said.
Ultra-Orthodox men should devote themselves to the life of study and prayer. For many, this includes insulation from the outside, worldly world: without the internet, without television and without radio.
Mr. Waisa’s house, even the CD player was “Kosher” – a radio antenna was removed. One day, when Mr. Wais listened to music, he suddenly heard his voice through static. The headphones unknowingly picked up his radio signal. After that, he spent hours listening to the radio, revealing a completely different world.
It was the beginning of his exit from a strict ultra-Orthodox life. When he turned 17 in 2022, he told his parents that he wanted to leave the Yushi to work. They were stunned but obtained. They took him to the market center to buy clothes for his new life.
He found a job outside Tel Aviv. Then, when he heard of the Supreme Court’s decision, he found a new path, fighting for his country.
Student
Mr. Krausz has no interest in the secular Israeli society.
He spends most of his time under the supervision of a rabbis that warn of a long list of sins, including any contact with women outside his family before marriage. He barely leaves his densely charged Ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, where signs, and even, and above his family home-in-deposit passers-by to dress modestly so as not to offend the inhabitants.
That’s how he wants to live.
Thousands of Haredi men in Israel receive state subsidies for the study of Torah, while their wives often work. In Israel, 53 percent of the Haredi men employ, opposite 80 percent of the Haredi women. For Israelis who are not an ultra-Orthodox employment rate, they exceed 80 percent.
The population of Haredi was also raised – from 40,000 in 1948 to 1.3 million today.
Mr. Krausz is one of 18 children. In their four room house, people sleep around the dining room table. He wants the same big family. “The better,” he said. His parents are looking for a woman for him.
The government has long funded at least a fifth of Jeshivas; Donors cover the rest. Earlier this year, the Israeli court stopped the public financing of Jeshiv who teaching men of military age, part of the encouragement to insert myself more in the army.
The decision does not bother Mr. Krausz. One of the reasons he resists the military service is that he is opposed to the concept of the Israeli state.
The sect of Mr. Krausz, Yahadut Haharedi, says that there should be no Jewish state until the Messiah arrives.
Activist
In the weeks before his new life in the army, Mr. Wais went into a night out with friends. With the car sliding, Mr. Wais scored his nose and said, “The leftist sitting next to me is sweaty.”
That “leftist” he mentioned was his friend, Mr. Greenberg, who was indeed ideologically on the left side – and sweaty. He came directly from anti -war demonstration and had stickers on the T -shirt to show it.
The two met on social media months earlier and created a friendship as young men of Haredi trying to fit into wider society.
At the age of 12, Mr. Greenberg began to question his faith with the censored version of the Internet as a guide, dreaming of life outside his community. “The only way to become part of the Israeli society is to assemble themselves,” he recalled. “It was one of the most stunning insights I had in my life.”
To 16, his views developed further – the left side. He became Vegan, stopped believing in God and developing a fierce opposition to Israeli occupation.
It also opposes the making of an ultra-Orthodox, but for various reasons from most. “It is important to integrate ultra-Orthodox people into Israeli society,” he said. “And work for equality. But I don’t care about the equality of killing and oppression.”
In the car to Jerusalem, Mr. Wais and Mr. Greenberg jokingly exchanged excavation. They drank colorful cocktails in a friend’s apartment, then headed for the haradi persecution that served traditional Jewish food like chopped liver and cholent, a slowly cooked stew. Eventually the conversation turned to politics.
“I’m not willing to participate in a system that commits such crimes,” Mr. Greenberg told Mr. Wais in the car.
“What crimes?” Mr Wais replied.
“Do you want a list?” Said Mr. Greenberg.
Would be their last night together. They were both made. While Mr Wais was preparing for basic training, Mr. Greenberg was preparing to report to a military prison as a conscientious objection. His ultra-Orthodox family reluctantly accepted his new views, including his father, a rare Haredi man serving in the army reserves.
He was not accepted by his friends upstairs. Once in prison, Mr. Greenberg realized that his fellow prisoners were not activists like him, but the soldiers accused of crimes. They followed him and threatened him, he said, and the guards sometimes put him alone for his own protection. “They hate the army,” he said about other prisoners, “but they hate me more.”
Last month, after 197 days in prison in five separate prison residents, Mr. Greenberg came out of prison for what he hoped for was the last time. “The army decided to let me go”, He saiddressed in green duxerica with smiling faces.
“But the wider goal was to build a better future, for everyone from Jordan to the sea,” he added. “I haven’t done it yet.”
Ultra-Orthodox platoon
In the past few decades, hundreds of men Haredi have defied their community and have voluntarily hit for military service, but most have kept away from the fight. Mr Wais wanted to be different: he wanted to fight.
“I don’t like war,” he said. “But I love action on the street – soldiers and rockets.”
However, after a medical examination revealed that he needed an ear surgery, military officials told him he was not cut for a fight. Instead, he would maintain aircraft.
In August, he arrived at the air base in the north of Israel and was awarded a unit with two other Haredi soldiers. They shed their traditional black and white dress for the mechanics overalls, but kept their statues or traditional skulls. Many still wore Payot or side curls, common among Ultra-Orthodox. Mr Wais had shaved his age earlier.
Their barracks and lunch tables were separated from other soldiers to avoid mixing with women, which could break the Haredi principles. Their food was cooked even stricter Kosher standards. They prayed and studied religious texts for two to three hours a day – most Mr. Wais said he had studied since he left the seminary.
“There are no soldiers here who could complain about how to treat us with religious issues,” he said.
On the last day, Mr. Wais and two colleagues Haredi soldiers have undergone final training for a F-16 fighter plane. They were the same jets he looked at as a child.
After that, the soldiers gathered for a sermon from the haradi rabbi. The next day they needed to graduate in training.
“We are in the midst of the greatest war of all,” Rabin said, David Visan, teenagers.
“You have to prepare your souls to attach to the kindness in the world,” he added. “Delete evil.”
He now works as an aircraft technician in a special Ultra-Orthodox unit 105.
“We’re new pioneers,” he said. “We march at the head of the movement.”
Ultra-Orthodox protest
Mr. Krausz, evil is haradim in the army.
“That’s the way I look at any Jew who breaks Shabbat,” he said, referring to the Jewish rest day. “It’s forbidden to love them.”
He forgave the secular soldiers. “Of course they don’t know better,” he said, swelling at the pages of strawberries on the dining room table, the shelves of religious texts behind him.
His greatest fear is that the ultra-Orthodox faith will not survive if Haredi men have to fight.
After the Supreme Court’s decision, Mr. Krausz joined thousands of other Haredi men on the streets. They filled around the application office and harassed Haredi drawn by entering.
The Israeli army said in a statement that Haredi men who neglected orders “can face criminal sanctions.”
Yet, unlike Mr. Greenberg, who surrendered to the authorities, Mr. Krausz and his peers generally avoided the consequences.
Every effort to force them to serve, Mr. Krausz warned, will not be understood easily.
“We’re ready to die not to go to the army,” he said.
Myra Novack contributed to reporting from Jerusalem and Haifa, Israel.
