This community is, however, exempt from military service and devotes itself to the study of the Torah. But after the massacres committed by Hamas, some want to take part in the war effort.
Zalman lives in Bet Shemesh, near Jerusalem. He is 36 years old, has three children and wears a black yarmulke on his head. Coming from a family of illustrious rabbis, born in Jerusalem, he was always immersed in an ultra-Orthodox environment and until then had never thought of his life other than through God and the study of the Torah. October 7, the day of the massacres committed by Hamas, was a turning point for him and he decided to take part in the war effort.
“It was the apocalypse”, justifies Zalman. He is one of those very pious people who only learned of the massacres at 7 p.m. on Saturday evening when he finally connected to the news after Shabbat. “I understood that this time it was really close to home, he admits. Even downstairs there could have been terrorists! And if they don’t, it’s because someone stopped them along the way. So I said to myself: ‘I’m an adult, I can’t escape’. An inner voice told me: ‘I have to go to the army'”.
Zalman therefore presented himself last week at the recruitment office and on Wednesday, November 1, he will leave for the army: “I know it’s late but better late than never”. His wife Tzipi is by his side, they made this decision together and she fully supports him. Initially, Zalman will receive theoretical training. He’s not particularly athletic: “I’m not going to crawl in the bushes anyway. I’m getting ready for the idea of wearing the uniform though.”. Regardless of the mission entrusted to him, he thinks that he will not be asked to fight.
“Maybe I’ll be told to be a driver, or to cut salad in the kitchen. And that’s fine! I’ll do what the army wants me to do”
Zalman, an ultra-Orthodox who joined the armyat franceinfo
So far, only 150 ultra-Orthodox Jews have been officially recruited in October. This community of 1.2 million people – or 13% of the Israeli population – is exempt from military service and lives very much on the margins of society. But the military says it has received hundreds of other applications. She predicts that 2,000 of these “haredim” (“those who fear God”, in Hebrew) will soon be under the flag.
The army cannot be the role of the ultra-Orthodox
However, the vast majority of ultra-Orthodox people are far from taking this step. In Bnei Brak for example, a community neighborhood in Tel Aviv where the men all wear curls, hats and black suits and the women wear wigs, Moshe who is a student at the yeshiva (the Talmudic school) makes fun of what grows some to enlist as soldiers since the Hamas attack. “When people see blood, they start to get scared. I understand, but I think they are making a big mistake”assures Moshe.
“Above all, this terrorist attack allowed us to see that the army cannot save us. God is the only one who can do it”
Moshe, an ultra-Orthodox from Bnei Brakat franceinfo
The army cannot be the role of the ultra-Orthodox, assures the 21-year-old religious. “In the Bible, there are always on one side those who fight and on the other side those who study and pray. There are already enough lay people like that among the Jews, so we must continue to study the Torah.”.
However, in his office in a modern tower, a stone’s throw from the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, journalist Yanki Farber, himself a “Haredi”, believes that his community is today large enough in Israel to lend a hand to the military. . “If you really study Torah, fine, but if not, get involved!”, he says. At a very young age, he had joined one of the very first units of the Israeli army exceptionally open to the ultra-Orthodox and those close to him did not understand why: “Because I don’t live in Switzerland, I live in Israel, the country that everyone wants to destroy!”. Yanki Farber believes that his ultra-Orthodox community is opening up, changing profoundly and he believes that Israelis only know how to unite when someone threatens to destroy them.