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I was in Israel recently for the first time since Ran Gvili’s body was returned and the first time when no Israelis remained captive in Gaza. Gone were the hostage posters and yellow ribbons. There was a lightness I hadn’t felt since before the judicial reform crisis. While the Iranian threat hovered in the background, the conversation this time was almost entirely domestic: the future of military service for the Haredi community.

For those who haven’t tracked the issue closely, exemptions for full-time Torah study go back to pre-state arrangements. What was once a narrow accommodation has grown into an untenable imbalance. After Oct. 7, 2023, the question is no longer philosophical; it is existential. A society cannot sustain a defense burden carried by only part of its population — especially when headlines forecast that by 2050, roughly a quarter of Israelis will be Haredi. Israel’s Supreme Court has now ruled the current arrangement illegal, and most Israelis across the spectrum agree. But the governing coalition relies on Haredi parties, and that makes meaningful reform nearly impossible today, setting up the next election to revolve around whether Israelis want a coalition capable of legislating a new social contract.

But if we frame this as “good guys versus bad guys,” we will miss the story. 

While in Israel, I spent a morning on an IDF base where tanks are built and repaired. It looked like what we now expect from the Start-Up Nation: robotic welders, computer-guided cutters, and metalwork done with extraordinary precision.

And the soldiers running the operation? Haredim.

Not dropouts. Not marginal cases. Committed young Haredi men who, after the Oct. 7 attacks, feel a responsibility to be part of the serving nation. They are part of Kodcode, a program built to give Haredi recruits the secular education they never received — math, engineering, English and more — along with the skills to complete three full years of military service and secure good jobs afterward.

Maimonides Foundation, along with others, began engaging with the Haredi community about 10 years ago. Our focus was primarily economic: Israel would not be able to sustain a rapidly growing Haredi population if large numbers of men did not enter the workforce. In an economy like Israel’s, work requires proficiency in math, science and English — subjects that many Haredi boys stop studying after elementary school. Our efforts, therefore, centered on introducing those core subjects into the school day. We found that many, though not all, Haredi parents welcomed this approach. We worked with the Haredi community, not against it, strengthening the efforts of those who wanted change — who wanted a brighter future for their children while maintaining a commitment to Torah and a Haredi way of life. But after the war began, it became clear that education alone was not enough. Israel needs Haredi men to serve. And that realization is what brought us to the IDF base that morning.

Two of the soldiers we met had come from the new all-Haredi Hashmonaim Brigade. It is one of the most significant structural changes the IDF has ever made: a frontline infantry brigade designed for Haredi life. It preserves the rhythms of a strictly observant community — prayer, study, modesty — while integrating these young men fully into national defense. One soldier told us that the entire unit had lost phone privileges that day because two recruits had skipped their morning “seder” of learning. It was a reminder: this is not dilution of Haredi norms; it is the IDF bending in order to include them.

We asked the questions any Israeli would ask.

“How do your parents feel?” Proud.

“Your mothers-in-law?” Tolerant.

“Your friends?” Envious.

And the most telling answer: These young men did not see themselves as exceptions; rather, they saw themselves as the early wave of something inevitable.

I asked if they believed Haredi politicians represented them. “They’re trying,” one said, “but sometimes they do more harm than good.” Every soldier in that room had gone to his rebbe for permission — a dispensation given quietly, case by case, never as policy. One young man couldn’t do that; his rebbe had passed away. “So what did you do?” I asked. 

“I went to his kever,” he replied. “I asked that I represent our community well to the Jewish people and that I don’t lose any friends in battle.”

If these are the prayers of our young soldiers, maybe we are not as far apart as we’ve been told.

The Haredi conundrum is real. The math is real. The inequity is real. But so is the possibility of change — change already happening on IDF bases, in new brigades and in the quiet courage of young men who want a seat at the table of shared responsibility.

Israel will need legislation, political recalibration and courage from its leaders to align policy with principle. But policy change often follows lived change. What I saw suggests that the ground is shifting — slowly, unevenly, but unmistakably.

And that should remind us of the simple truth often lost in the headlines: We are still one people, still capable of surprising one another, still bound by the hope that our children serve, protect and pray for the same future.

Mark Charendoff is the president of Maimonides Fund.