The Haredim are now advocating for the hostages – too little, too late, too selfish
After 15 months of indifference, ultra-Orthodox politicians are now demanding that the hostage-ceasefire deal be implemented in full. They have a wider agenda
Shalom Yerushalmi is the political analyst for Zman Israel, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew current affairs website
It’s been years since the ultra-Orthodox politicians have been so enthusiastic about a government initiative that isn’t directly related to their community.
Ministers, Knesset members and key activists from United Torah Judaism (UTJ) and Shas have been lining up since the beginning of the week to demand the completion of the second, yet-to-be-finalized phase of the hostage-ceasefire deal and the return of all hostages held by Hamas – and thereby essentially calling for an end to the war in Gaza.
Housing Minister and UTJ leader Yitzhak Goldknopf on Tuesday promised that his party would continue to back Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu through each stage of the multiphase deal, “until the last hostage” comes home.
Shas’s Labor and Welfare Minister Yoav Ben-Tzur, for his part, urged Netanyahu to see to the release of all the hostages in Gaza: “Go for the next deal, move on to the second phase, don’t stop… Our sons and daughters are suffering there. I promise you — all six Shas ministers, led by [party leader MK] Aryeh Deri, will support you. Bringing them back is the most sacred goal.”
All of this may seem a bit odd, given that these are firmly right-wing parties, with firmly right-wing ultra-Orthodox voters who, in turn, influence the policies of their rabbis and politicians.
In fact, the ultra-Orthodox statements of support for the hostage-ceasefire deal come at the explicit request of Netanyahu, who seeks to showcase broad support for the agreement, particularly ahead of his meeting next week in Washington with US President Donald Trump, who is pressing for the agreement to be implemented in full.
The Haredi parties’ support for the second phase of the deal is not only about returning the hostages home, however, but also about advancing the draft exemption law – perhaps the most important mission for their politicians since the establishment of the State of Israel, comparable only to their past battles over Shabbat observance and the “Who is a Jew” law.
On Tuesday, in a radio interview, Deri threatened that Israel would “go to elections” if the draft exemption law does not pass in the next two months — implying that Shas and UTJ would not vote in favor of the 2025 state budget, which must be passed by the end of March or the government will automatically fall, triggering elections.
The fate of the hostages held by Hamas has rarely unsettled the ultra-Orthodox community. Prominent rabbis have spoken about the mitzvah of redeeming captives, but there were also always voices who objected to the heavy price demanded: ending the war and releasing thousands of Palestinian detainees, including hundreds with blood on their hands.
Haredi politicians have never threatened to bring down the government if the hostages are not returned. This is not a “deal-breaker” issue for them. When it comes to the draft exemption law, by contrast, Goldknopf is implacable. “Without the law, I have no reason to be here,” he has said.
Likewise, the ultra-Orthodox parties and their supporters never organized even a symbolic demonstration in support of the hostages’ release, despite the halachic declarations of chief rabbis Yitzhak Yosef and David Yosef and the consistent stance of their father, the legendary Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Nor did they participate in the thousands of demonstrations held for the hostages, which they viewed as left-wing events.
Their attitude toward the hostages’ families has generally been indifferent. The famous rabbinic dictum, “Whoever saves one life, it is as if he has saved an entire world,” did not inspire the ultra-Orthodox community to take to the streets of Bnei Brak or Mea Shearim.
At the decisive cabinet meeting on Friday, January 17, when the current hostage deal was brought to a vote, Haredi ministers left notes expressing their support for the deal and went off to their Shabbat meals. They did not attend one of the most intense and charged cabinet meetings in Israeli history.
None of them considered that this might be a matter of life and death, and that perhaps they should stay and persuade opponents from the Religious Zionist camp to fulfill one of Judaism’s most important commandments. Or perhaps they knew the deal was going to be approved without them.
What the ultra-Orthodox neglected for almost a year and a half, however, they are now trying to make up for with conspicuous enthusiasm. Deri spoke passionately about the need to save lives during the Shas faction meeting at the Knesset on Monday. A wave of speeches and interviews ensued echoing the theme.
Said Shas’s Ben-Tzur, “We will support any deal and will not relent.”
MK Moshe Gafni of UTJ, meawhile, pledged, “Our support is consistent. This is the directive of the Torah sages. It’s unrelated to other matters.”
UTJ leader Goldknopf’s full-throated support is particularly surprising. He was a central speaker at a conference in Jerusalem in January 2024 where he advocated Jewish settlements across the Gaza Strip. He maintains this stance today, though it does not square with his support for securing the release of all hostages, which in turn involves ending the war and which is already seeling the return of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza.
The ultra-Orthodox politicians, in short, have discovered the plight of the hostages too late, and with too little credible commitment.
It is convenient for the ultra-Orthodox today to appear as supporters of the deal: It’s not a good look to oppose the return of abducted soldiers and other men held hostage while simultaneously insistently seeking to maintain their community’s exemption from military service, especially in the midst of a difficult war.
Moreover, ending the war might ease the pressure on the ultra-Orthodox. The military’s desperate calls for soldiers could quiet down – taking ultra-Orthodox draft evasion out of the spotlight and perhaps convincing more of the public that the country’s defensive ranks can make do without them.
