Haredi Judaism is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that broke away from modern secular culture. It emerged as one of the responses to the changes that the modern era imposed on Jews. The Haredim have maintained strict adherence to Jewish religious laws, segregating themselves from modern society. Haredi means in Hebrew: «the one who trembles» at the word of God.

Before Jewish emancipation, most Jews lived segregated in ghettos, where classical culture and religious observance were their only option. Rabbis such as Moses Shraiber, the Chatam Sofer, opposed any change in the practice of Judaism. In 1912, shortly after the 10th Zionist Congress, where funding for religious schools was voted down, the organization Agudath Israel was founded as a distinct alternative to the Mizrahi religious Zionist movement. Agudath Israel was led by Hasidic rabbis and heads of Lithuanian yeshivot. Its goal was to strengthen Orthodox religious institutions and make them independent of Zionism.

In 1919, Rabbis Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld and Yitzchok Yerucham Diskin founded the Edah Hahareidis organization in the Land of Israel as part of Agudat Israel. Despite being a minority on the committee representing the Jews before the British Mandate, Sonnenfeld secured separate representation for the Haredim before the British High Commissioner. They claimed to cooperate with the general Jewish representation on municipal matters, but sought to protect their religious beliefs independently. This simple fact is considered the breaking point of the Haredi community with the rest of the Jewish community.

In the decade beginning in 1945, following the end of World War II, there was a strong push to rebuild the Haredi religious lifestyle, destroyed in the Holocaust. In the nascent State of Israel, this was done by the Chazon Ish, and in the United States by Rabbi Aharon Kotler, who established many of America’s schools and yeshivos. Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum played an important role in the revitalization of the Hasidim, especially the Satmar dynasty. In Israel, the formation and spread of the Haredi lifestyle among Sephardic Jews began in the 1980s, led by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and the Shas political party. Sephardic Jews adopted the culture of the Lithuanian Haredim, without any historical or cultural basis for doing so.

Haredi Judaism is not an institutionally cohesive or homogeneous group. It is composed of a wide variety of groups with particular cultural and spiritual orientations, including their ideology, lifestyle, religious practice, and degree of isolation. Men and women attend separate schools, and this gender separation has been extended to the public sphere. Many men continue their education after marriage. Haredi families are very large. They do not watch television or movies, nor do they use the internet or computers at home.

The Haredim opposed the establishment of the State of Israel and do not celebrate its Independence Day. Some groups participate in Israeli politics, joining political parties, but only to secure advantages and benefits for their members. Others are anti-Zionist, like the Neturei Karta. In any case, Haredi life is like returning to life in the medieval ghetto.

By Marcos Gojman.

Bibliography: Encyclopaedia Judaica and other sources.