Israel’s Haredim Confront the Burdens of Jewish Self-Government

October 7 shattered a great many Israeli preconceptions. The word konseptzia—the “conception”—has haunted Israeli public discourse since the Yom Kippur War, when deeply entrenched assumptions blinded political and military leaders to evidence before their eyes. After October 7, the term returned with a vengeance. Hamas had been deterred. Economic opportunity in Gaza would create an interest in stability. Superior intelligence, air power, sophisticated border defenses, and a small technologically advanced army could manage the threats surrounding Israel. These assumptions, and the policies built upon them, have been subjected to relentless scrutiny ever since.

But the shattered preconceptions were not only military. In the months and years before October 7, Israeli society had become consumed by struggles of extraordinary intensity—over judicial reform, religion and state, constitutional authority, and the basic character of Israel itself. Political opponents increasingly appeared not as fellow citizens with whom one disagreed but as existential threats. Perhaps we had begun to assume that a prosperous and powerful Jewish state could afford endless internal fragmentation: that each community could fortify its own identity without weakening the Jewish whole, and that questions of common responsibility could always be postponed.

October 7 and its aftermath saw these assumptions crumble one by one. The Israelis murdered at Be’eri, Kfar Aza, Ofakim, and Nova were killed as Israelis and Jews; the soldiers who raced south to save them did not first inquire how they had voted. The international reaction supplied another sobering lesson. Responsibility for Jewish existence, we were rudely reminded, cannot be outsourced.