Lavish Hasidic fundraising event held on Memorial Day eve, sparking condemnation

The Democrats party chairman Yair Golan issued a scathing condemnation on Tuesday after the Mothers at the Front protest group shared a video showing what appeared to be the ultra-Orthodox Gur Hasidic movement holding a lavish event as the country marked Memorial Day eve with solemn ceremonies for the fallen.

“They don’t enlist [in the army]. They don’t share the burden. And they don’t care about those who enlisted, fought, and fell to protect them as well,” Golan tweeted. “This contempt for mutual responsibility and the foundations of the state must end. We will put a stop to this celebration built on the backs of those who serve and at the expense of the entire public.”

Memorial Day, along with Holocaust Remembrance Day, are the two most somber days in the national calendar. A minute-long siren on Memorial Day eve brings much of the country to a standstill as people pay their respects.

Enlistment among the ultra-Orthodox community, also known as Haredim, is a subject of bitter contention in Israel. Some 80,000 ultra-Orthodox men aged between 18 and 24 are currently believed to be eligible for military service, but have not enlisted due to broad exemptions afforded to the community. The Israel Defense Forces has repeatedly told lawmakers that it needs well over 10,000 more soldiers due to the strain of recent conflicts and other military challenges.

The Gur movement’s gathering in the central Israeli city of Ness Ziona, which was described by the Mothers at the Front as a fundraising event, was focused on selling homes to young Hasidic couples, according to an Instagram post by the Walla news site.

“It’s time to say it loud and clear: Whoever doesn’t wear a uniform, whoever doesn’t honor the memory of the fallen, and whoever chooses to celebrate while the entire country weeps has no place in the leadership of the country,” the group declared in a post to Twitter.

אתמול בזמן שהלב שלנו נדם בצפירה הם חגגו על שולחנות ערוכים.
הטקס האלטרנטיבי של חסידות גור – על הקירות כתוב יזכור אבל אין קשר לזכר הנופלים. באמת קשה למצוא את המילים כדי לתאר את עומק הזעזוע ממה שקרה אתמול בנס ציונה.
בערב הכי קדוש וכואב לחברה הישראלית, בערב יום הזיכרון, התקיים… pic.twitter.com/8EBKUB7Q1V

— אימהות בחזית (@IBahazit) April 21, 2026

Haredi parties are vital partners in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, and resisting the draft is one of their key policies.

Last month, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir reportedly warned during a security cabinet meeting the the “IDF is going to collapse in on itself,” as the army deals with mounting operational demands and a deepening manpower shortage.

Meanwhile, the High Court of Justice sharply reprimanded the police last week for failing to arrest Haredi draft dodgers during a hearing on the government’s efforts to enforce ultra-Orthodox military conscription.

The court was also fiercely critical of the government itself, and accused it of failing to do anything to implement the court’s previous rulings regarding enforcing the draft on ultra-Orthodox military-age men.

In June 2024, the High Court issued a ruling ordering the government to start conscripting Haredi men. Since then, yeshivas harboring draft dodgers have seen their budgets slashed, draft refusers have lost access to daycare subsidies for their children and other benefits, and the IDF has begun arresting small numbers of evaders, including some attempting to leave the country.

However, at the same time, the coalition has pushed for legislation that would codify blanket exemptions from military service for full-time yeshiva students, while setting modest conscription targets for Haredi men as a whole. The bill has come under fire from an array of critics who say it would enshrine sweeping exemptions for the Haredi community.

In late March, the chair of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Likud MK Boaz Bismuth, said he would resume advancing the controversial bill after briefly stopping work on it at the start of the war with Iran.