We Are the Haredi Children of Winter '26
We were told that the Draft Law is a Holocaust. We were accustomed to singing "We will die rather than enlist." We were taught that Law is the "rule of heretics" and that there are no limits to resistance. With a blind eye turned, we were taught to risk our lives standing on scaffolding and cranes, blocking roads, engaging in confrontations, and throwing objects. We obeyed, and behold, our bodies lie here.*
Our leaders have allied with the man wearing the hangman's noose pin, teaching us that Haredim are elevated above the people and that Arabs are not entitled to protection. And now, Yosef Eizental is dead, and us, and the drivers we beat, we all lie bed by bed in the hospital.
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Yosef Eizental, of blessed memory, and footage of the ramming; here lie our bodies
(Photo: Yehuda Aharoni)
The driver who was attacked might be charged with manslaughter. We might be charged with something, or perhaps not. Our representatives in the Knesset and our Rabbis will pat us on the back; parades of heroism will be held for us in the streets of Jerusalem and Bnei Brak. Lawlessness will increase; death and hatred will soar. We worked in the service of the politicians, and behold, our bodies lie here.
We Are the Haredi Children of Winter '26
This week, the Minister who is supposed to represent us used the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to attack sanctions against draft evaders who failed to report: "Does this align with the UN Convention that Israel is a signatory to? To starve little children?" He forgot to mention that by refusing to provide us with vital knowledge, he is the one primarily responsible for our starvation. He forgot that he and his friends know that the hungrier we are, the stronger their parties become.
The Knight of the “Convention on the Rights of the Child" hopes we have forgotten his support for the sex offender Rabbi Berland, and Rabbi Litzman's support for the pedophile Malka Leifer. He and his friends hope we have forgotten, and will continue to forget, that they are responsible for our hunger, for the sexual abuse we suffer, for the Shababniks roaming the streets without a profession, and for the families with many children and no livelihood.
We Are the Children of Winter '26
And we will teach our leaders Torah (it is not their fault that they don’t study; they are busy with politics): The spiritual bombshell at the center of our Jewish heart is that the Written Torah does not legally address parental responsibility toward their sons and daughters. Perhaps the biblical legislator forgot; perhaps he thought it was self-evident (a somewhat problematic argument, since "Thou shalt not kill" is also supposed to be self-evident). Or perhaps the Torah thought it was none of its business, and the care for children was left to the parents' choice.
And What About the Duty of Education?
The leaders of "Torah is their trade" will claim that since the duty of education is mentioned in the Torah and if children, at least the sons, must be educated, it is obvious that they must be fed and their lives protected, otherwise we will have no one to educate. But there is no “Compulsory Education Law" in the Torah; there is a duty to revere God, which requires us to pass His heritage to the next generation (Deuteronomy 6:7): "And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them..."
Politicians, then and now, do not have children before their eyes, but rather the ideology and the party.
Flowers for Usha
Usha, the Galilean settlement, is mentioned as the place where the leadership of the Sages moved after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt. In Usha, like in Yavne before it, there was a need to deal with the post-war distress. Although the Jewish settlement recovered quite quickly after the Bar Kokhba revolt, initially there were economic difficulties and poverty that raised the issue of responsibility for children's hunger. Out of temporary distress, Usha enacted a permanent regulation, and for the first time in our history, a law was enacted placing the responsibility for feeding children on their parents (Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot 49b): "At Usha they instituted that a person must nourish his sons and his daughters while they are young."
From this regulation, we learn that in times of distress, there were parents who transferred the responsibility for their children to the community fund. My heart goes out to the parents who were forced to do so, but the community was also poor, and the needs were many. With no other choice, the Sages announced to the parents that the responsibility for the children lies first and foremost with you.
You Are the Haredi Parents of Winter '26
And you must know the Usha regulation and know that one day you will be required to look into the eyes of the next generation and explain how you dared not to teach them a profession. How you dared to cooperate with the destructive dependence on the Haredi parties. How you dared to allow them to roam the streets, to flout the law, and not ensure they protest safely. How you abandoned the responsibility for your children's education and lives to cynical politicians. How we arrived at the death of sweet boys in reckless demonstrations (the late Yosef Eizental is not the first boy killed in a dangerous Haredi protest).
And If the Parents Do Not Want to Pay?
From Usha onwards, the Sages applied educational measures and pressure on parents (continuation of the Sugya): When they came before Rav Yehuda, he said to them: "The jackal gives birth to offspring and throws them upon the townspeople" (imposing the responsibility of feeding his children on the community). When they came before Rav Chisda, he said to them: "Turn a mortar upside down for him in public, and let him stand and say: The raven wants children, and that man [meaning, I] does not want children..." When they came before Rava, he said: "Is it convenient for you that your children are fed by charity?"
Here we have three methods of applying pressure on parents. The first two are based on shaming. Rav Yehuda compares the parents to animals, to jackals that do not bring food to their offspring. We have an incomprehensible tendency to insult humans by comparing them to animals (regardless of scientific truth), and so does Rav Yehuda. Rav Chisda escalates, and his shaming is blunt and direct: let the parent stand on a stage / mortar and declare that he is not interested in his children. For true parenthood is, first and foremost, responsibility for the children's lives.
The word "mortar" (asita in Aramaic) is interesting in our context, as it is a large vessel used for crushing. I think of the parent for whom the mortar is overturned so he may stand on it and publicly declare he renounces his children. How much effort would a parent make to avoid a situation that crushes his parenthood?
It is Rava, a wealthy Babylonian Sage, who expresses the pinnacle of compassion. He does not shame the parent but looks him in the eye and asks: "Is it convenient for you that your children are fed by charity?" This painful question restores the parental bond to its place—"your children"—and expresses empathy with the pain of the father who cannot feed his children: "Is it convenient for you?"
Is It Convenient for You That Your Children Are Fed by Charity?
I understand why charity is good for politicians; a poor community and wealthy parties are an unparalleled tool of control. But now, on the eve of elections, we must appeal to Haredi society—without condescension or shaming, but out of partnership and the understanding that this reality was forced upon them from childhood (also by secular parties who viewed the Haredi community as a captive community).
Professor Ruhama WeissPhoto: Avivit Ben NoonWe must ask them with love: Is it convenient for you that your children are fed by charity? Is it convenient for you that your children risk themselves in reckless demonstrations? Is it convenient for you that your politicians back criminals and sex offenders?
Clearly, the answer is no, and therefore you must rebel against your politicians and make them pay for their wickedness. Do not vote for them, do not listen to them. It will be hard, but we can get through it together. The state must not continue to abandon you, and it must compensate the "intermediate generation", the generation that, through the state's fault, did not receive an education but will grant it to its sons. One generation, twenty years, and the abandonment and poverty of Haredi society will end, and redemption will come to us all.
We are in the first week of 2026 And already a woman has been murdered in her home. Eleven Arab Israelis have been murdered. Ran Gvili has not been returned to his family and to our land. The blood is on the hands of the government of bloodshed.