US-based Haredi charity raises over $130 million for draft evading yeshiva students

An ultra-Orthodox charity has raised over $130 million (just under NIS 400 million) for Haredi yeshiva students in Israel, its website shows, in response to welfare and funding cuts that have been imposed over the past few years in response to draft evasion among military-age Haredi men.

The charity, Kerem Olam HaTorah, says on its website that it has raised over $130 million since the High Court of Justice ruled in June 2024 that there was no longer any legal framework for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students to be exempted from military service, and that by extension, there was no legal framework to continue financial benefits granted by the state to such students.

The charity says its goal is to raise $12 million each month, but at present, the monthly donation rate comes in at slightly under $11 million.

The charity appears to primarily receive donations from sympathetic Jews in the United States, although it says it receives funds from 42 countries globally. A UK-based branch of Kerem Olam HaTorah said in September 2025 that it had raised more than £10 million (more than NIS 40 million) as well.

On its mission page, the charity says that 120,000 yeshiva students from across 1,489 Haredi institutions and their families — amounting to over 350,000 people total — “rely on us to survive each day.”

The charity offers different one-off options for willing donors, including the option to sponsor an unmarried yeshiva student for $152 a month or $1,824 a year, or a married one for $276 a month or $3,312 a year.

The charity implores sympathetic parties to “stand on the side of Torah. Give any amount to be part of what keeps us, us.”