As Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community roils over the draft controversy—with increasingly extreme messages in the Haredi press and on the streets—Satmar Hasidim from the United States, who oppose the very existence of the state, are seeking to exploit the turmoil and claim to represent Haredim in Israel.
On behalf of the Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Yekutiel Yehuda Teitelbaum, his son Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Teitelbaum and wealthy Satmar businessman Joel Landa are scheduled to arrive in Israel on Tuesday. Their purpose: to support the fight against drafting Haredim into the military.
The visit will focus on financial steps meant to replace state funding that the High Court has frozen for those subject to conscription. The aim is to take advantage of this budgetary void to push for the complete separation of the Haredi education system from the government—so that schools would no longer receive, nor rely on, state budgets.
The delegation also intends to meet with leading moderate Haredi rabbis in Israel in hopes of influencing policy through them.
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Since the founding of the state, Satmar Hasidim have clashed with other Haredi streams over whether to accept government budgets and participate, even indirectly, in the state system without being drafted. Satmar insisted this was forbidden and cut themselves off completely, refusing any state funds. By contrast, most other Haredi streams saw acceptance of state budgets as a practical solution—using the resources while constantly seeking to keep Israeli educational values out of their institutions.
Haredi youth burning IDF conscription orders
(Video: Ido Erez)
About a month ago, Landa donated his private jet to fly the Gerrer Rebbe on a fundraising tour in the United States. After assisting with the tour, he wrote the Rebbe a letter that was considered “unusual,” in which he criticized Israeli Haredim’s reliance on state budgets.
The letter read: “What has come of all this is that, since the Haredi communities have become accustomed to depending on the state, they have grown so weak in their own eyes that today they truly believe their institutions have no future without it. And sadly, there is truth in this. Laymen have gotten used to putting their money in the bank instead of in Torah institutions. The public has become needy, with no self-strength to expand the boundaries of holiness. Their only ambition is to find some law of the ‘lesser evil,’ all just to resume receiving money from the state.”