Last week, the stability of Israel’s governing coalition was severely shaken following the withdrawal from the Knesset agenda of a bill that would continue daycare subsidies for haredi children whose parents don’t serve in the military. This is but another example of how contentious this issue has become due to the vast manpower demands on the IDF during the past year of war. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi, judge, and intellectual, calls on members of his own community to rethink their attitudes toward conscription:

A fateful choice now lies before the haredi Jewish community: . . . we are called upon to take responsibility for our reality. . . .

[A]rmy service touches our core identity: no longer a separatist communal identity, but a national one; no longer a haredi, insular identity, but a Jewish-Israeli one. Military service declares a deep partnership with the state, far beyond the incidental relationship of an average taxpayer—hence the profound opposition to military service.

The problem, however, is that we are unwilling to speak in these terms, in the language of sincerity. We cannot declare that we are not part of the state, for reality denies it: we are a significant portion of Israel’s government, including ministers and cabinet members; we make up nearly 15 percent of the population (and a far large proportion of those receiving welfare payments); and many of us feel Israeli and are proud of it. On the other hand, we struggle to grant official recognition to Israeli identity, which could harm the fragile walls of isolation and threaten the communal (and exilic) identity of haredi Judaism. Lacking sincerity, we are overly occupied with unconvincing justifications for our refusal to enlist.

In October, a young Mauritanian national murdered an Orthodox Jewish man on his way to synagogue in Chicago. This alone should be sufficient sign of the rising dangers of anti-Semitism. Nathan Diament explains how the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA) can, if passed, make American Jews safer:

We were off to a promising start when the AAA sailed through the House of Representatives in the spring by a generous vote of 320 to 91, and 30 senators from both sides of the aisle jumped to sponsor the Senate version. Then the bill ground to a halt.

Fearful of antagonizing their left-wing activist base and putting vulnerable senators on the record, especially right before the November election, Democrats delayed bringing the AAA to the Senate floor for a vote. Now, the election is over, but the political games continue.

You can’t combat anti-Semitism if you can’t—or won’t—define it. Modern anti-Semites hide their hate behind virulent anti-Zionism. . . . The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act targets this loophole by codifying that the Department of Education must use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism in its application of Title VI.