Moti Leitner is Chairman of HaTzibbur HaCHaredi, the CHaredi Public Party, a new political home for CHaredim who believe that protecting the world of Torah requires responsible leadership and practical solutions.
For the past year, I have travelled across Israel listening to members of the Haredi community. I met avreichim, working fathers, mothers carrying the financial burden of large families, educators, business owners and young people searching for a place within the community they love.
I heard deep devotion to Torah, but also growing anxiety. Families are struggling financially. Young people who do not fit within the existing educational framework are being lost. Dropout rates in parts of our community are alarmingly high. Parents fear that their children will reach adulthood without the education, qualifications or practical skills needed to build stable lives.
These conversations convinced me that the present situation cannot continue. They also convinced me that the natural partners in creating a new path are Israel’s observant right-wing public.
Our communities share far more than our politics sometimes suggests. We believe in the eternity of the Jewish people, the centrality of Torah and the historic connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. We understand that Jewish sovereignty is not merely another political arrangement. It is the fulfilment of generations of prayer, sacrifice and longing.
Yet the relationship between the Haredi and Religious Zionist communities has too often been reduced to coalition arithmetic. Haredi parties provide mandates for a right-wing government, receive budgets for their institutions and then retreat into their own political world. This may sustain governments, but it does not build a genuine partnership.
After October 7, that arrangement became even less sustainable.
Thousands of Religious Zionist families have paid an unbearable price defending homes, communities and country. Their sons and daughters have served for hundreds of days. Their communities have buried far too many of the fallen. They have defended the people of Israel on every front while continuing to build families, communities and Jewish life throughout the country.
The Haredi public cannot ignore that sacrifice. We cannot call ourselves right-wing while remaining indifferent to whether Israel has an army large enough to defeat its enemies. A right-wing worldview must mean more than voting against territorial concessions. It must mean ensuring that Israel possesses the military strength, social resilience and national unity necessary to defend every part of our homeland.
Those who seek to justify a smaller army, despite a severe shortage of soldiers, cannot credibly claim to represent the nationalist camp. Israel needs an army capable of fighting simultaneously on several fronts while protecting communities in Judea and Samaria and along every border.
That does not mean sending every yeshiva student into the army or destroying the world of Torah. Those genuinely committed to full-time Torah study must be protected and left to learn. Torah learning is an essential part of the spiritual defense of the Jewish people.
However, not every Haredi young man is learning full-time, and pretending otherwise serves neither Torah nor Am Yisrael. We need appropriate military and national service frameworks that protect CHaredi religious life, maintain strict standards and allow those who serve to remain respected members of their communities.
The rule must be: those who go into the IDF as Haredi must leave it as a Haredi.
The same principle applies to education and employment. Protecting the Torah world cannot mean condemning thousands of families to permanent dependence. A strong Torah society must be economically sustainable. It must provide young people with the skills to work, support their families and contribute to the country without forcing them to abandon their identity.
The great Torah leaders who rebuilt Haredi life after the destruction of European Jewry created something extraordinary. But by refusing to confront poverty, educational failure and social alienation, we risk dismantling what they built. Institutions cannot remain strong if the families supporting them are collapsing under financial pressure.
There is another area in which the Haredi and Religious Zionist communities can build a powerful partnership: the future of Judea and Samaria.
Israel’s Haredi population is growing rapidly and faces an acute housing crisis. Young couples are being asked to pay prices they cannot afford for apartments in increasingly overcrowded cities. At the same time, Israel has a national responsibility to strengthen the Jewish presence throughout our historic heartland.
We should establish new cities and expand suitable communities in Judea and Samaria. These cities should be planned from the outset around the needs of their residents, with affordable housing, yeshivot, schools, synagogues, employment centers, transport links and the infrastructure required for large and growing communities.
This would provide a serious response to the housing crisis while advancing the mission of protecting the Land of Israel. Haredi families should not merely be passengers in this matter. They can become pioneers in strengthening Jewish life in Judea and Samaria.
Imagine tens of thousands more Haredi families building homes, opening businesses, establishing institutions and creating new centers of Torah in the places where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob walked. There should be nothing foreign to the Haredi world about settling the biblical heartland of the Jewish people.
This is the partnership Israel now needs: a Religious Zionist public that respects and protects the world of Torah, and a Haredi public prepared to accept greater responsibility for Israel’s security, economy and national future.
That is why I established HaTzibbur HaCHaredi, the CHaredi Public Party. We are not seeking to secularize the Haredi community or wage war against its institutions. We are creating a political home for Haredim who believe that protecting Torah requires honesty, accountability and practical solutions.
We believe in genuine Torah study, expanded educational choices, dignified employment, appropriate military or national service, economic independence and building Haredi communities throughout the Land of Israel. We are a right-wing party because we believe in a strong army, secure borders and the right of Jews to live in every part of our ancestral homeland.
For too long, the established Haredi parties have treated the right-wing public as a coalition partner but not as a partner in a shared national mission. That must change.
We must also recognize that meeting the challenges of the Haredi community can only come from within. It can not be imposed from outside, and our current political representation seems to be more concerned with politicking, slogans and excuses.
Religious Zionists and Haredim do not have to agree on every theological or cultural question. Nevertheless, we can recognize that the future of the Torah world, the security of Israel and the settlement of our land are interconnected.
The Haredi public must now stand up and accept responsibility. The Religious Zionist public should welcome those who are ready to take that step.
Together, we can protect Torah, defend Israel and continue building the Jewish future in every part of our land.