Queens-Born Chedvata Soldier Brings the Message to The Five Towns
The sense of unity and outrage following the Hamas attack on Israel resulted in unprecedented numbers of young chareidim signing up for military service, even as leading rabbis and politicians remain opposed to drafting yeshivah students amid the ongoing war in Gaza. Responding to their needs, Rabbi Yonatan Reiss seeks to expand Chedvata, a chareidi Hesder program that consists of Torah study in the mornings, career training in the afternoons with Ashkelon College, followed by army service in a chareidi IDF unit.
Raised in the Belz chasidic community, he married at 18 and worked in Brazil for a few years. Upon returning to Israel at age 26, he was arrested for evading the draft. He served in the army and was then inspired to create an organization that would prepare chareidim for careers while serving in the army – without compromising their religious observance.
Last week, Chedvata participant Aryeh Reit toured shuls in the Five Towns with Tzvi Binn, the organization’s public relations coordinator.
“I’ve been living in Israel for the past 30 years,” Binn said. “It’s tearing the country apart. Chedvata is the solution. It was started by charging themselves.” An oleh from Silver Spring, Maryland, Binn said that Chedvata represents the future of Israel, as the number of chareidim grows and their participation in society becomes a bigger priority. He described Reit as a very special young man, who led 26 soldiers during his military service in Gaza, and a close friend of Staff Sgt. Bezalel Zvi Kovach, Hy”d, the first Chedvata participant who was killed in combat last year.
“I grew up in Beit Shemesh. My parents made aliyah from Queens when I was three. I attended a Chofetz Chaim yeshivah in Cherry Hill. Then I decided to go into the army. It wasn’t m’kubal, as they say,” Reit said. “Only in the army do you realize how society is different, especially for a chareidi kid.”
To date, nearly a thousand Israeli soldiers have been killed since Hamas invaded southern Israel on October 7, 2023, with religious soldiers represented disproportionately among the fallen and wounded – many of them residents of yishuvim.
However, among chareidim, data compiled by the Israel Democracy Institute and IDF statements at Knesset meetings noted that chareidim are underrepresented in the ranks. Despite annual population growth of four percent – the fastest of any group in Israel – chareidi IDF enlistment has remained relatively steady since 2018 at about 1,200, just ten percent of those eligible for service in 2023. IDF units designed for chareidim accept religious soldiers who may not necessarily fit the public perception of chareidi, with individuals coming from “modern” chareidi families, baalei t’shuvah, and yeshivah dropouts, among others. Yet, somewhere between changes in the military draft law, developing a career, and feelings of patriotism, Binn expects the number of chareidi soldiers to grow.
“There are 400 kids in the program. It should be 4,000 in a couple of years. We have a fighting unit. We want to spread the word. This has to grow. We don’t have a choice,” he said.
Kovach’s funeral last summer had as many mourners in uniform as those wearing suits and black hats. It exposed the organization to a sector of Israeli society unfamiliar with military service. In an interview with The Times of Israel, his friend Yehuda Segal spoke of Tzavta, a pre-military academy within Chedvata where chareidi men receive seven months of preparation before enlisting. During the shiv’ah for Kovach, Segal explained it to a chareidi young man.
“I told him how we combine commitment to Judaism with army service, the holy with the profane, contributing to the nation with learning Torah – that the two don’t contradict each other,” he said.
At its campus in Gan Yavne, Chedvata partners with Ashkelon College to provide degrees such as accounting, business, or computer sciences. Last year, Chedvata opened a new yeshivah in Nesher, near Haifa, that caters to a predominantly Sephardic population; and there are plans to open campuses in Netivot and Jerusalem.
“They are pushing for chareidim trying to get into the army, infantry specifically,” Reit said of politicians seeking to draft chareidim. “There are a lot of no’s, because they were not prepared for it. That’s where this comes in.”
The organization does not expect a mass entry of chareidim into the military and recognizes that most of them are not prepared for it – which is why the Tzavta program exists.
“Not everyone is cut out for it; the truth is that most people within the chareidi mainstream are not built for army service,” Rabbi Reiss said last year in an interview with The Times of Israel. “But for those who are, Chedvata ushers them through a significant educational process that prepares them for the secular world while fostering a strong chareidi identity, something that is not talked about so much in the mainstream chareidi community.”
For more information on Chedvata, visit www.chedvata.org.
By Sergey Kadinsky
