Three recent viral videos on social media have put the issue of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) conscription in the spotlight, even as the Knesset continues its inability to legislate the matter.
The first, posted on February 28 by Mendel Rata – a hassidic composer and singer who is the son of the rebbe of the Shomrei Emunim hassidic sect in Ashdod – documented his seventh week in training with the new haredi Hashmoniam Brigade.
Since enlisting in December, Rata has shared updates about his experience, and in this clip, he described learning navigation skills – how to get from point A to point B without a map – admitting it wasn’t his strongest suit.
Rata – wearing an IDF uniform, a large black velvet kippah covering most of his head, and with earlocks that drop just below his chin – said the high point of the week was his swearing-in ceremony.
“A gun on the right side, a Bible on the heart, a picture of the Temple in the new tag of the Hasmonean brigade on the left shoulder, we pledged allegiance to the people of Israel and to its beautiful state.
Friends, is there anything more Jewish than that, anything more holy than that? I have never experienced a more holy or exalted moment.”
The clip garnered 3,800 likes.
On Sunday, another video went viral, this one on X/Twitter. In it, Rabbi Yaakov Meidan, head of Yeshivat Har Etzion in Alon Shvut and a leading rabbi in the national religious camp for whom Torah study is a supreme value, is talking to a group of haredim learning in a haredi hesder program.
Meidan, whose son Elisha lost both legs in Gaza and who said his other sons have been serving continuously since October 7, spoke with deep emotion about how the Torah commands everyone to take part in defending the country.
“We have so many dead, and so many injured, and a big reason for that is that there is not enough manpower,” he said. “Torah means getting under the stretcher and carrying it.”
Moreover, he said that with so many families struggling – mothers barely managing with small children while their husbands serve – non-participation in this effort was untenable. “Something here in the understanding of what Torah is needs to be corrected,” he said. “Torah is, first of all, getting under the stretcher.”
Meidan’s comments garnered 108,000 views and more than 1,000 likes.
In a Kan Bet radio interview the following day, the rabbi said that these types of conversations with haredim are important but not enough. “This works too little and too slowly, but it works, and we need a lot of patience in this matter.”
JUST HOW little and slowly was made evident in another viral video on Tuesday. This one captured the wedding celebration of the son of Rabbi Sholom Ber Sorotzkin, the prominent head of the Ateret Shlomo network of Torah institutions that includes some 40 yeshivot, kollels, Talmud Torahs, and kindergartens across the country, where he led thousands of yeshiva students in singing the unofficial anthem of the stridently anti-Zionist Neturei Karta haredi group.
“We don’t believe in the heretical government,” they sang, with Sorotzkin altering the second line: “and we do not abide by their laws,” to: “We won’t show up at their recruitment offices,” a reference to the refusal to appear, as legally required, at IDF induction centers.
In the next three months, the IDF plans to send out 14,000 draft notices to haredim in addition to the 10,000 that have already been sent. So far, only 177 – like Rata – have enlisted, though some others are still in the process.
A clip posted on X of this song being sung at the wedding racked up 913,000 views and sparked outrage.
The reaction was swift for two reasons. First, the Ateret Shlomo yeshiva network receives some NIS 50 million ($13.7m.) in government funding annually. Second, this is not an extremist fringe group like Neturei Karta – it is the haredi mainstream.
Deepening despair within the haredi public
Rabbi David Avraham, writing in the haredi news site Behadrei Haredim, argued that the event reflected a deepening sense of despair within the haredi public over the government’s recent measures.
That despair stems from tangible policy changes. On March 1, the state stopped subsidizing daycare for children of draft-age haredi men (18-27) who are legally obligated to enlist.
Last April, the government also canceled stipends for married yeshiva students paid to their yeshivot. While charitable donations from abroad largely covered that shortfall, the loss of daycare subsidies is a major blow.
“These are the most difficult days for a haredi person living in Israel,” Avraham wrote, citing financial pressures, fear of being barred from leaving the country, and concerns about potential arrests.
LEADING RABBIS in the community called for a day of prayer on Thursday, the Fast of Esther, to repeal the decrees.
Comparing these decrees to those against the Jews on Purim, an item in HaMevaser, a haredi daily affiliated with Agudat Yisrael’s Meir Porush, explained:
“Rabbis and heads of yeshivot have said in recent days that it is impossible not to connect this [the draft notices] to the spirit of these times [Purim] as the draft notices are being planned to be sent after the Fast of Esther.”
The item continued: “If in those days the intention was physical persecution, in our time there are those who seemingly aim for spiritual persecution, heaven forbid. They cannot bear to see the Torah world flourishing and thriving, [and] the haredi community growing, with God’s help, and continuing the mission of the Jewish people. It is clear that Torah study is the strength of the Jewish nation, and without a doubt, thanks to observing the commandments and upholding the Torah, we have survived 2,000 years in exile.”
The backlash to the wedding video was immediate and furious.
Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern wrote on X: “They don’t believe in the government, but they believe in its money – and in the blood [of fallen soldiers protecting the state].” His party initiated a process to revoke funding for Ateret Shlomo and to cancel its charitable tax status.
Meanwhile, Yisrael Beytenu leader MK Avigdor Liberman seized on the moment to promote his long-standing position, writing on X: “They don’t enlist? They don’t vote.”
Those responses were expected. What was unexpected was the reaction from the Religious Zionist Party, led by Bezalel Smotrich. Posting the video on its Facebook page, the party labeled it: “A shame and disgrace.”
FOR YEARS, a guiding halachic principle for Jews in the Diaspora has been not to provoke hostility from surrounding nations or non-Jewish governments when living under their rule.
In Israel, however, this principle does not seem to apply. Few things are more provocative for non-haredim than haredi rabbis and students gleefully rejecting the government and refusing to defend the state – all while taking its money – at a time when others are dying for it.
An anonymous haredi educator, quoted in Behadrei Haredim, offered a blunt explanation for Tuesday night’s spectacle and why highly respected mainstream haredi rabbis were leading their charges in an extreme anti-Zionist song.
“The situation the haredi public finds itself in now, after a year-long campaign of persecution against Torah learners, has led to no one among the great rabbis or public representatives calling for restraint or avoiding provocation against secular people, because the Left has already destroyed everything with harsh incitement against Torah learners.
On the contrary, the great rabbis came to strengthen the young men at the wedding and encourage the thousands of students who danced.”
And indeed, this was the mainstream, with the wedding attended by leading spiritual and political figures from all stripes of haredi society.
But there will be a price.
IT IS HIGHLY unlikely that this government will cut funding to Ateret Shlomo, but this government will not last forever.
And the next government – which very well might be established without the haredi parties – might do just that. That reality seems lost on haredi leadership, both the politicians and leading rabbis.
Public sentiment on this issue has shifted dramatically due to the war. While the issue of haredi conscription has always been a source of tension, it has now reached a boiling point.
Many see it now not just as a moral imperative – everyone must contribute equally to defending the state – but as an existential necessity: the army simply needs more soldiers.
This shift is particularly stark within the religious Zionist community, as reflected in Meidan’s comments. This community has moved largely from a position of tolerating draft exclusions for haredim because of an appreciation of the value of Torah learning, to anger at these exemptions because their community has borne a hefty part of the brunt of the war – both in terms of soldiers who have fallen and been injured, and in the toll it has taken on the families of reservists.
Polling data reflects this change. A November Israel Democracy Institute poll found that 84.5% of the non-haredi Jewish public supported haredi conscription – up from 67% in January.
Among the national religious sector, support surged, almost doubling from 36.5% to 72.5% in the same period.
Whenever the next election comes – be it in six months or by the legal deadline in October 2026 – the video of Sorotzkin leading thousands of able-bodied men in a chant enthusiastically rejecting army service will inevitably feature prominently in the campaign ads of several parties adamantly opposed to the current situation.
Polls indicate that after those elections are held, a government could be formed without haredi parties. If that happens – riding the wave of public sentiment now – the gloves could come off regarding government support for those who do not serve.
Whoever sang that song at this time – while hundreds of families are mourning their dead who went out to defend the borders and the Israeli collective – is utterly tone-deaf. That tone deafness will carry a price – if not now, then soon. After all, October 2026 is not that far away.
