This essay is part of a continuing series featuring distinguished writers on the bond and shared responsibility between chareidi Jews in the Diaspora and those living in Eretz Yisrael. Through personal experience, reflection, and thoughtful perspective, the series seeks to deepen the conversation and highlight meaningful points of connection. Readers are invited to share their thoughts at [email protected]

A Love That Must Grow Into Understanding
By Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller-Gottlieb

When people speak about the chareidi community, they do not always mean the same thing. To me, the term refers to Jews who take Torah and mitzvos with full seriousness, regardless of the shape or color of their kippah. And historically, one truth has been unmistakable: the more deeply Jews were attached to Torah, the more deeply they were attached to Eretz Yisroel.

Throughout history, the Land was never truly abandoned. When the Ramban arrived in Yerushalayim, he found only a tiny remnant of Jews. Yet they were there because they wanted to be there. Later came Rabbi Yehuda HaChassid and his followers. After them came the talmidim of the Vilna Gaon, and then the chassidim, who formed a community known as the Old Yishuv. They did not come because life in Eretz Yisroel was easy, prosperous, or secure. They came out of a belief that a new era had arrived, one in which the coming of Moshiach could be hastened through the Jews’ return to the Land and the fulfillment of the mitzvos hateluyos ba’aretz.

In modern times, of course, a very different force brought many Jews to Eretz Yisroel. The age of nationalism in Europe formed the backdrop, and the Dreyfus trial, together with Emil Zola’s “J’Accuse,” helped crystallize the political vision of Theodor Herzl, an assimilated Jew who could not even read Hebrew. The Jews who came under that banner were, for the most part, not moving toward Torah and kedushah, but toward a national solution to Jewish weakness and exile. They sought to redeem themselves by becoming a nation like other nations.

The Zionist movement and its institutions created a deep fracture between the Old Yishuv and the New Yishuv, and in many ways that fracture still reverberates in Israeli life. It has deep roots, and for a long time each side viewed the other through suspicion, caricature, and pain.

And yet the reality in Israel today would have been inconceivable in Ben Gurion’s time. The majority of members of the government are at least traditional, and many of them are overtly religious. The majority of olim who come through Nefesh B’Nefesh and various other organizations are choosing to come, and they range from traditional to chareidi. This is who we are.

Over the past two years, in the broader Israeli tzibbur, there is a visible reawakening of emunah. The released captives from Gaza startled Israeli society with their almost unanimous expressions of Jewish identity and emunah. Moreover, since Simchat Torah, October 7, and during the most recent confrontations with Iran, we have been witnessing events that can only be described as open miracles. 

That said, old wounds are hard to close. On the side of the observant and the traditional communities, much effort is being made to close them. For instance, the amount of tzitzis that soldiers wanted was supplied by whom? And brought to them by whom? And the fact that they wanted them at all says something. This is a definite step forward.

Nor is that an isolated detail. For many on the chareidi side, too, there is less of the old instinct to view secular Israel as a hostile force bent on uprooting Torah. People are recognizing something more nuanced: the secular world is not the enemy. The broader Israeli community is no longer defined by the old antagonism. There is kashrus in the army, in hospitals, and in national institutions. There is genuine effort to make it possible for observant soldiers to serve as religious Jews. The space given to religious life is real. Chareidim living in Eretz Yisroel know this, and increasingly chareidim abroad are beginning to understand it as well.

This means something. Beneath the arguments and the politics, there is movement. There is openness. There is a real desire among many Jews to reconnect to something deeper.

Nevertheless, the yetzer hara has managed to gain a foothold, and that is in the issue of universal army service.

I would say that the majority of people in broader Israeli society do not scorn Torah. On the contrary, they admire it. They may see it as something elevated, meaningful, and precious. But they still place it in the category of other admirable human pursuits. Torah, in that view, becomes something beautiful, like mastering the violin, writing poetry, or excelling in science. It is respected, but it is not recognized as central.

And that is precisely the point the Torah world must teach.

Torah is not one Jewish value among many. It is not one noble occupation alongside other noble occupations. Harav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, shlit”a, Rosh Yeshivas Slabodka, has stated unequivocally that Torah is the foundation of Jewish existence. There would be no Am Yisroel without Torah. The very name “Israel” would not exist without Torah. This is why the question of army service has become the greatest point of friction. The pain behind the argument: “We are fighting and you are not,” cannot be dismissed. But neither can the Torah world surrender the truth that Torah learning is not a luxury, not an escape, and not a private preference. It is the backbone of our very existence, and this is an issue that must be addressed bedarkei noam.

All of this leads to the question for Jews abroad:

What should the chareidi Diaspora make of all this?

First, it should recognize that the bond with Eretz Yisroel is not sentimental and not abstract. It never was. For Torah Jews, attachment to Eretz Yisroel has always been part of the soul’s orientation.

Second, it should recognize that something important is unfolding here.

At the same time, another force is pushing many Jews in the Diaspora toward a new clarity: rising antisemitism. In England, in Europe, and in Canada, many people who never seriously considered Aliyah are now certainly thinking about it. I do not know whether all of them will come, but it is unquestionably on the radar. In the United States, the pressure is not yet as intense, thank G-d, and the recognition that this is not truly home is not yet as deep. But that recognition is coming.

And with that comes another recognition: Eretz Yisroel is not simply one more Jewish community. A Jew lives differently here. Even a very holy life in Lakewood is not the same as a holy life in Eretz Yisroel. There, holiness exists in spite of where you are. In the Holy Land, holiness flows because of where you are. And perhaps that is the deepest change of all: more and more Jews are beginning to understand that Eretz Yisroel is not simply where Jewish history happens, but where the Jewish future is being decided.

Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller-Gottlieb is a senior faculty member at Neve Yerushalayim and principal of Bnos Avigail Seminary in Jerusalem. For more than four decades, she has been a revered educator and sought-after speaker, inspiring generations of Jewish women through her depth, clarity, and emotional insight. The author of numerous books, she is also widely known for her newspaper articles, through which her voice and ideas have reached readers far beyond the classroom.