Israel is facing two major challenges - our enemies all over the world, and a lack of unity within Israeli society, Yossi Levi, Lt.-Col. (res.) & CEO NAHAL HAREDI told The Jerusalem Post’s Miami Summit earlier this week.
While not everybody in Israel’s haredi society is necessarily against military service, it does not support serving in the military, he clarified.
Israeli demographics show that there are currently 1.4 million haredim (ultra-Orthodox) people in Israel, Levi pointed out. NAHAL HAREDI began bringing haredim into military service 26 years ago, and there are currently 4,000 in active service, with 24,000 veterans, but this number should be 100,000, he affirmed.
Levi, recounting his personal story as a soldier from a Jerusalem haredi background, told the conference that he became the chief operations officer of the battalion during active service, before moving over to the IDF’s West Bank undercover counterterrorism Duvdevan unit during his reservist duty. While in the reserves, he became a company commander in Duvdevan, before becoming the deputy battalion commander, and then, a year ago, becoming the first haredi battalion commander in the IDF’s history.
When the October 7 massacre happened, Levi realized that NAHAL HAREDI had to do something new. “I saw there were not enough haredi soldiers,” he said.
The organization started to make a “revolution through education,” by following the lead of the Religious Zionist movement, creating pre-army service programs, and haredi hesder yeshivot (a program where members split time between yeshiva study and military service.)
Now, approximately 27 months after the Israel-Hamas War began, there are about 1,000 students in the haredi pre-army service programs who have come from haredi homes. “We will see thousands that come from the right education to military service. We believe in yeshiva values - they protect the Israeli people, and so do soldiers,” Levi said.
However, the mission is not yet complete. “We need to see tens of thousands of haredim with us - in war, in the economy, in society. That is how we will bring unity inside Israel, which is the only way to stay secure in the Middle East,” he affirmed.
Written in collaboration with Netzah Yehudah