{"id":248790,"date":"2026-08-14T11:29:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T11:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/248790\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T11:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T11:29:09","slug":"israels-new-ultra-orthodox-party-pushes-for-haredi-enlistment-education-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/248790\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel’s new ultra-Orthodox party pushes for haredi enlistment, education reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the current haredi parties in the Knesset \u2013 Shas<\/a> and United Torah Judaism (UTJ) \u2013 have received increasing criticism over their stance regarding ultra-Orthodox enlistment amid the IDF\u2019s severe manpower shortage, a new haredi party<\/a> has emerged ahead of the upcoming elections.<\/p>\n

The Haredi Public Party has been aiming to enter the Knesset or receive representation on the lists of Shas and UTJ and to take a different approach, supporting haredi enlistment<\/a> to the IDF.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has relied on Shas and UTJ as key coalition partners for years. Throughout the government\u2019s term, the haredi party leaders have pushed for legislation that critics argue would not increase haredi conscription.<\/p>\n

Following the October 7 Hamas massacre and the ensuing war, a central issue in the upcoming elections has become the draft<\/a> of haredim to the IDF. Opposition party leaders in the bloc seeking to replace Netanyahu have pledged not to sit in a government with the haredi parties largely due to their stance over haredi conscription.<\/p>\n

Moti Leitner, deputy mayor of Beit Shemesh, who leads the new Haredi Public Party, laid out what he wants to do differently from the current ultra-Orthodox parties, in a recent interview with The Jerusalem Post.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Haredi Public party launched a large-scale advertising campaign at the entrances to and exits from major haredi cities on July 19, 2026. (credit: Office of the Haredi Public Party)New Haredi Public Party’s Leitner says ultra-Orthodox men should serve in military or national service<\/p>\n

While Leitner said he believes some haredi men who study Torah full-time in yeshivot should be able to continue doing so, he argued that the large majority of ultra-Orthodox men should serve in the military or do national service.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are tens of thousands of haredim, for whom studying all day in yeshiva doesn\u2019t suit, who want to be more in the world of action, who want to go and acquire a profession.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey must take responsibility. They must understand that the way to protect the one who sits and studies in yeshiva is for them to take responsibility [and enlist],\u201d Leitner said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if they don\u2019t enlist in the security forces, in national service, in civilian service, there\u2019s no one who will do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leitner told the Post that if his party were to receive representation in the Knesset, it would open the possibility for genuine haredi conscription, and the party would push for core curriculum subjects to be taught in haredi schools.<\/p>\n

Leitner also said the party has planned to work toward bridging the divide between haredi communities and the rest of Israeli society, while allowing ultra-Orthodox olim (new immigrants) to better acclimate to life in the country.<\/p>\n

Leitner himself enlisted in the IDF later in his life and went back to complete his high school matriculation exams after not having been taught core curriculum studies when he was growing up in a haredi community.<\/p>\n

When asked if haredi communities could accept being drafted into the IDF, Leitner explained that there are numerous groups in the ultra-Orthodox society, and that the response to enlistment would vary between communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaredi society isn\u2019t a collective, it isn\u2019t monolithic, it isn\u2019t one uniform bloc. It\u2019s dispersed groups, different ethnic communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t speak of them as a collective. And therefore there certainly will be communities and groups whom such a process will cause to close in on themselves even further.<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly as our forefathers did in the lands of the Diaspora, they\u2019ll know how to do it [accept those who serve] today, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can build our shared future, that of haredi society, alongside the other publics living here in this country, out of mutual respect,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Leitner explained what he believes is the best way to draft haredim to the IDF, following the government\u2019s past term in which legislation was passed last month to enshrine Torah study in a Basic Law, which is expected to open the ability for yeshiva students to receive state benefits, along with a separate bill to freeze the arrests of haredi draft evaders.<\/p>\n

The passage of the legislation came after severe legal warnings that it was unbalanced and would not increase haredi enlistment, as well as outrage from bereaved families and reservists. The haredi parties had boycotted coalition voting when legislation they were seeking to advance was stalled.<\/p>\n

Opposition party leaders such as former prime minister Naftali Bennett and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman held a hardline stance against state funding toward haredi draft evaders.<\/p>\n

They have said that their approach would be to block state funding to anyone who evades service as a way to pressure others to enlist.<\/p>\n

Leitner says freezing state funding, threatening arrests have opposite effect on conscription<\/p>\n

Regarding such an approach, Leitner said he believes it would have the opposite effect and not be beneficial in increasing haredi conscription.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think populist conceptions haven\u2019t led us anywhere better over the past decade. Inflammatory discourse, discourse that inflames tempers, discourse that leads to dehumanization and delegitimization of different groups in the sector, in Israeli society \u2013 they\u2019re part of the problem. The solution is also to speak respectfully.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leitner said that rather than enforcing sanctions on draft evaders, it would be more beneficial to use positive incentives to encourage haredi conscription.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think positive incentives have very great power to move people to do good things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf people didn\u2019t have to pay a mortgage and rent at the end of the month, and for their children\u2019s education, many of them would choose to stay at home and grow wiser, or idle,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd haredi society, like all human beings, responds to incentives, but not to sanctions and not to hatred, and not to attempts to harm the working haredi mother and the haredi child who studies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to strengthen and incentivize soldiers who serve, by all means, fund it further; get people who already today aren\u2019t studying [to hear the message]: \u2018Come to the army,\u2019\u201d Leitner said.<\/p>\n

He stressed that it is important for the government to begin enforcing the country\u2019s education system to oversee and make sure that all schools are teaching core curriculum subjects such as math, English, and civics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll see to it that every haredi child in the State of Israel whose parents want it will be able to acquire the tools of English and math,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot to teach children today English, math, and other tools, such as basic life skills, is like not teaching a child to read,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like releasing a child without knowledge, without an alphabet, without basic reading. It\u2019s a Jewish, moral, conscientious, national obligation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government, the state, should long ago have intervened and looked, listened to the cry of those parents who want this [core curriculum education], and given them a solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t do it because it was convenient to continue with the status quo… until it blows up in all our faces.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it will blow up, if we don\u2019t deal with it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The party also has made plans to help olim. Leitner said that many olim arrive with their families and find it difficult to be accepted into educational institutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey find that they have no one there for them to help them with the procedures and the municipal bureaucracy; that they have no assistance for the first year, no close and long-term accompaniment, yeshivas, life solutions of the kind they were used to,\u201d Leitner explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want the Jews of the Diaspora to make aliyah. We want to look after them, to beef up budgets, additional billions, to enable the immigrant public here from every sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MotiMoti Leitner, deputy mayor of Beit Shemesh and founder of the Haredi Public Party, at the \u2018Jerusalem Post\u2019 studio, August 11, 2026 (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM\/THE JERUSALEM POST)Building education institutions for Haredi olim<\/p>\n

He said that he also plans on providing haredi olim with educational institutions \u201clike the ones they\u2019re used to, to let them educate their children in the way they believe in, and to find them many solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking on his plans to improve the haredi community as a whole, Leitner said that he would address \u201cwhat the public wants \u2013 quality of life, integrity, unity, a livelihood earned by one\u2019s own labor; to give young people, and people who marry and have to bear the burden of a livelihood, the ability to acquire a profession and to earn a living with dignity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Leitner also warned that if the haredi community is not better integrated with Israeli society, it could endanger the state as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the current conduct, we endanger ourselves, our existence, our public, our families, our communities, and we also endanger the state we live in.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand that a strong, thriving, and prosperous haredi society does not contradict the state\u2019s success. And to a certain extent the two depend on each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf haredi society succeeds, the whole state will thrive and succeed,\u201d Leitner added.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf haredi society goes on being consumed by the challenges it faces today \u2013 it is the poorest society in Israel, and haredi children are the poorest children in Israel \u2013 if this continues and deteriorates, and it is deteriorating these days, this isn\u2019t stagnation; it\u2019s regression.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy every economic parameter and vector, we\u2019ll drag ourselves and the country downward. And that\u2019s worrying, and it\u2019s painful, and it\u2019s sad. That is why we declared that the time has come to act,\u201d Leitner said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the current haredi parties in the Knesset \u2013 Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ) \u2013 have received…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[12272,11285,423,37,30318,4028,15347,15348],"class_list":["post-248790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-haredi","tag-haredi-draft","tag-idf","tag-israel","tag-israel-elections-2026","tag-knesset","tag-shas","tag-united-torah-judaism"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117093634330709978","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}