Edah HaChareidis

The Edah HaChareidis brings together religious communities that follow their own rabbinical court rather than the senior rabbinic leadership of mainstream Haredi organizations.[7] Its defining institutional features combine communal religious authority, opposition to Zionism, electoral abstention and a kosher-certification system whose influence extends beyond its affiliated communities.[1][7] It is also described as the Edah Haredit, while its religious council is identified as the Orthodox Council of Jerusalem.[1][8]

Associated communities include Toldos Aharon, Toldos Avraham Yitzhak, Dushinsky, Satmar, a faction of Breslov, the Prushim and smaller groups.[1] Other community lists include Mishkenot Haroeim, Tiferet Jerusalem, the Jerusalem People community and Kehillas Chassidim; these lists are not exhaustive membership registers.[1][9] The coalition therefore encompasses several communal traditions rather than a single Hasidic court.[1][9]

A 2021 population estimate placed its associated population at about 40,000, concentrated mainly in Jerusalem’s Mea She’arim and Batei Ungarin neighborhoods, with increasing numbers in Beit Shemesh.[1] A 2020 estimate gave a range of roughly 40,000–60,000, emphasized the absence of precise figures and allowed that the total could be higher.[7] These communities constitute a small minority of Israel’s Haredi population.[7]

Some affiliated Hasidic groups trace their roots largely to Hungary and to traditions emphasizing separation from secular and non-Jewish society.[7] The Prushim represent a different historical component: descendants of disciples of the Vilna Gaon who settled in Jerusalem in the mid-19th century and became part of the Old Yishuv.[7] The Edah thus incorporates both Hasidic communities and a strand of Jerusalem’s older non-Hasidic Jewish population.[7]

Opposition to Zionism does not make the Edah interchangeable with all other Haredi organizations or with Neturei Karta.[1][7] Its rejection of electoral participation distinguishes it from Haredi communities represented through religious parties, while its relationship with Neturei Karta has involved both separation and factional influence.[1][10]

The Edah’s origins lie in Jerusalem’s Old Yishuv and the development of separate ultra-Orthodox communal institutions during the early 20th century.[9][11] Accounts identifying 1919 as its founding year connect its establishment with Rabbi Yosef Haim Sonnenfeld and with providing for Haredi Jews who had lived mainly in the four holy cities.[1][9] Its early institutional history also includes a separate Ashkenazi council organized by rabbis led by Isaac Yeruham Diskin and Sonnenfeld in opposition to the newly inaugurated Chief Rabbinate, which they regarded as a Zionist institution.[11] This council maintained its own bet din, or rabbinical court.[11]

Disputes surrounding Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook formed part of this development.[12] Some Old Yishuv rabbis objected to his leniencies concerning the sabbatical year and to his engagement with secular issues, and the Old Yishuv eventually chose Sonnenfeld as its own chief rabbi.[12] The Edah’s participants felt that their community suffered discrimination.[12] Rabbis opposing the Chief Rabbinate also designated the anniversary of its founding as a day of fasting and prayer.[11]

The Edah was organized within the framework of World Agudat Israel, but cooperation with nationalist organizations and differing attitudes toward Kook generated tensions.[12] Raphael Katznelboigen, born in Jerusalem in 1894, was both an early Edah activist and an Agudat Israel executive, and founded the newspaper Kol Yisrael.[12] His 1964 Hebrew-language oral-history interview addresses these overlapping institutional affiliations and their subsequent conflicts.[12]

The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs describes the Jerusalem community as having earlier been called Va’ad Ha-Ir Ha-Ashkenazi and recounts that, following Sonnenfeld’s death in 1932, political leader Moshe Bloy selected Yosef Zvi Dushinsky as his proposed successor.[13] In that account, the communal leadership offered Dushinsky the position during his visit to Jerusalem.[13]

Disagreement over cooperation with Zionists also produced divisions within the anti-Zionist camp.[10] Amram Blau led the more strongly anti-Zionist Hevrat Haim, founded in 1935, and in 1938 he and Rabbi Aharon Katzenellenbogen split from the less-vocal Edah and adopted the name Neturei Karta.[10] Among the disagreements was Agudat Israel’s silence concerning armed guards who did not fully observe Shabbat.[10]

A 2007 retrospective account linked the Edah’s separation from Agudat Israel to disputes over cooperation with Zionists and participation in a future government.[9] It describes a 1945 gathering in Petah Tikva at which most voters favored opposition to the proposed state and a break over joining a future government alongside Zionists.[9] The institutional division therefore concerned both religious authority and whether cooperation with a future Jewish government was permissible.[9]

During the War of Independence, the Edah’s rabbinical court ruled on May 2, 1948, that yeshiva students should not serve in the army.[2] The ruling preceded the fall of Jerusalem’s Old City and applied specifically to yeshiva students, unlike Neturei Karta’s broader opposition to military service.[2] This distinction is important to the historical relationship between the two bodies: their anti-Zionism did not always produce identical practical rulings.[2]

Selig Reuben Bengis became head of the Edah’s bet din in 1938 and subsequently became its rabbi after Dushinsky’s death.[14] His leadership directed communal affairs toward practical activities and restrained Neturei Karta, described as its most extreme wing.[14] In 1953, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum of Satmar was appointed president of the Edah while continuing to live in Williamsburg in the United States; Neturei Karta then dominated the community.[15]

The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs connects Teitelbaum’s rise with a 1952 visit to Israel, during which he donated substantial funds to Haredi institutions close to collapse and was named honorary president.[13] Its account says he became supreme judge of the rabbinical court, or Ga’avad, the following year and emerged as the Edah’s highest spiritual authority.[13] Isaac Jacob Weiss was appointed head of the Edah’s bet din in 1968.[16]

Rabbi Yitzchok Tuvia Weiss led the Edah from 2004 until his death in 2022.[17] Born in Slovakia in 1926, he was sent alone to London on the Kindertransport in 1939, later served as a rabbi in London and a dayan in Antwerp, and succeeded Rabbi Yisrael Moshe Dushinsky.[18] His leadership became associated with campaigns for Shabbat observance and against conscription and the desecration of graves.[17][18] He also supported bereaved military families and prevented anti-state demonstrations on Israel’s Memorial Day out of respect for them.[17]

The Edah’s religious position prohibits establishing a Jewish state before the coming of the Messiah and rejects participation in national and municipal elections.[1] Its opposition is therefore not simply a demand that an existing state adopt more religious policies: it concerns the religious permissibility of Jewish sovereignty before redemption.[8] In accounts of Haredi civics teaching, this position rejects the state’s right to exist regardless of whether its government is secular or religious.[8]

The theological argument draws on the biblical words “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem” and rabbinic interpretations of the Three Oaths, including prohibitions against rebelling against the nations and forcing redemption.[8][19] Within this interpretation, establishing the state violates an oath, and immigration undertaken to revolt against non-Jewish nations or hasten redemption is opposed.[8] The secular Zionist character of Israel’s establishment deepened the opposition.[8]

Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum’s teachings became particularly influential in this outlook.[9][19] A study in Tradition Online characterizes his Va-Yoel Moshe as condemning Zionism and cooperation with it, grounding opposition in the Three Oaths and opposing spoken Hebrew.[20] Teitelbaum also ruled against voting in Knesset elections and against Haredi representatives serving in parliament.[20] His interpretation connected electoral participation with severe religious transgression and presented the Holocaust as divine punishment for the desire to establish a state.[9]

This political approach differs from that of Agudat Israel, whose practical recognition of Israeli sovereignty permits cooperation with state institutions to advance Haredi interests despite objections to secular Zionist ideology and governance contrary to Torah.[8] The Edah and associated anti-Zionist groups instead regard abstention as a religious obligation; accounts of these positions describe voting as heresy or sacrilege.[2] These are communal teachings and rulings, rather than evidence that every individual member has behaved identically.[2]

Institutionally, affiliated communities follow the Edah’s own rabbinical court.[7] In 2020 its leaders were identified as Rabbi Yitzhak Tuvia Weiss and Rabbi Moshe Shternbuch.[7] The court adjudicates disputes according to Jewish law and rules on subjects including kashrut, but it is not a state tribunal.[1] Its authority to hear disputes derives from the litigants’ consent, and its rulings are halakhic rather than legally binding under Israeli law.[1]

Badatz, an acronym for Bet Din Tzedek, is central to this religious authority and to the Edah’s income and influence.[1] Its kosher-certification system developed under the rabbinical court’s management and won acceptance among religious and Haredi circles beyond the coalition itself.[9] The Jewish Review of Books identifies the Edah as the original issuer of private certification commonly called BADATZ and reports that by 2014 there were 24 independent certifications using that designation.[3]

Shabbat observance has been a recurring focus of public campaigning.[21] Amram Blau organized protests against Shabbat violations in the 1950s and 1960s, some of which became riots involving police; later protests also occurred on Jerusalem’s Rehov Bar-Ilan during the 1990s.[21] Campaigns have combined demonstrations with negotiations and consumer pressure rather than relying on a single method.[22][4]

In 2008 the Edah called for a boycott of the Shefa Shuk supermarket chain because its parent company also owned AM:PM, a separate chain operating on Saturdays.[22] Posters and advertisements urged Haredi consumers not to shop at Shefa Shuk.[22] Sales at stores in Haredi neighborhoods initially fell by half and were subsequently reported at 30 percent below their previous level.[22]

In 2010 the Edah’s Shabbat committee targeted ten Jerusalem gas-station convenience stores: seven Yellow stores, two So Good stores and one Menta store.[4] Rabbi Yosef Rosenfeld said negotiations with the chains would precede demonstrations and described a store near the Toldot Aharon seminary as “a crack in the wall of Shabbat.”[4]

A 2010 Jewish Review of Books account describes weekly demonstrations during the preceding autumn by followers of Rabbi Yitzchak Tuvia Weiss against Sabbath operations at Intel’s Jerusalem factory, which bordered a Haredi neighborhood.[23] It interprets the dispute as involving both religious objections to work and concern that traffic and commerce disrupted residents’ experience of Shabbat.[23] The account reports that Intel Israel general manager Maxine Fassberg warned that continued protests could lead to the factory’s closure or the company’s departure from Israel, putting 6,500 jobs at stake.[23]

Opposition to conscription has involved rabbinical rulings, collective prayer and street demonstrations.[2][5] In 2012 the Badatz called for a special prayer in synagogues for ten days beginning on the fast of the 17th of Tammuz to avert what it described as the danger of drafting yeshiva students.[5] The call followed a Jerusalem protest and prayer gathering attended by thousands, and Weiss declared that yeshiva students would not be allowed to be taken into the army or police.[5]

In 2022 ultra-Orthodox groups including the Edah protested in Jerusalem against conscription and a planned light-rail route through an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood.[24] Hundreds clashed with police on March 3 following the arrest of a young man who refused military service, while protesters burned trash bins during a July 26 demonstration against the rail route.[24] Community representatives said some members lacked military-service exemptions because their yeshivas were not state-recognized and students had not submitted exemption applications; they claimed that dozens of members were arrested each month.[24] Representatives repeated these explanations in reporting covering 2023, alongside further protests over conscription and the proposed rail route.[25]

During the early COVID-19 outbreak, affiliated schools and yeshivas initially remained open while kindergartens closed.[26] Religious authorities subsequently instructed followers to obey medical authorities, with a notice calling disregard of those instructions a “big sin.”[26] Weiss and Shternbuch issued guidance against synagogue prayer and urged meticulous compliance with doctors’ instructions, while an Edah representative said most communities were following the rules.[7]

Neighborhood planning has provided another field of activity.[6] In 2024 the Edah objected to a proposed pedestrian tunnel connecting a planned central railway station with Mea She’arim, arguing that it would change the neighborhood’s character and introduce secular culture into Haredi areas.[6] Representatives filed an objection with the National Infrastructure Committee, and Israel Railways recommended accepting it and paused advancement of the secondary entrance while retaining the possibility of pursuing it later.[6] The Jerusalem municipality supported the connection, and its city architect emphasized that the Edah represented only part of the neighborhood’s residents.[6]

The Edah’s Badatz certification gives a relatively small communal coalition an economic and religious reach beyond its population.[1][27] Its certification system is an important source of income and influence, and its acceptance among broader religious communities gives the organization a role extending beyond its own adherents.[1][9] A 2010 assessment characterized its Badatz as Israel’s strongest private kosher-certification body.[27]

The Shefa Shuk boycott demonstrated the practical consequences of organized consumer pressure: a campaign directed at a parent company’s association with Sabbath trading produced substantial reported losses at stores serving Haredi neighborhoods.[22] The campaign did not concern only whether the targeted supermarket itself opened on Shabbat, but the commercial connections of its owner.[22] Negotiations over convenience stores and demonstrations at Intel likewise extended the Edah’s religious campaigns into relationships with businesses operating in or near Haredi neighborhoods.[4][23]

Historically, the Edah represents an institutional continuation of parts of Jerusalem’s Old Yishuv and its resistance to the transfer of religious authority to Zionist-associated bodies.[7][11] The Prushim connect its present communal composition with the descendants of Jewish settlers who arrived in Jerusalem during the mid-19th century.[7] Its own court, communal leadership and kashrut system preserve a framework of religious organization separate from the institutions followed by mainstream Haredi parties.[1][7]

Its significance within Haredi politics is also one of distinction: opposition to secular Zionist ideology does not necessarily entail the Edah’s rejection of elections and state cooperation.[8] Agudat Israel’s practical cooperation with state institutions illustrates an alternative Haredi approach, while the Edah maintains a separatist religious position.[8] Its history with Neturei Karta further shows that anti-Zionist communities themselves have differed over organization, methods and the scope of particular prohibitions.[2][10]

Weiss’s prevention of Memorial Day protests and support for bereaved military families also formed part of the Edah’s public record alongside his opposition to conscription.[17] These actions distinguished respect for families affected by military deaths from acceptance of the state’s military policies.[17]

The religious argument underpinning the Edah’s anti-Zionism is disputed among Jewish thinkers.[19] Other interpretations hold that the Three Oaths are not practically binding or that their validity has expired, rather than accepting Teitelbaum’s conclusion that they prohibit establishing a Jewish state.[19]

In 2018 the Edah revoked kosher approval from a winery and demanded that Ethiopian employees be prevented from coming into contact with its wine because of doubts about their Jewish status.[17] The episode generated intense controversy.[17] The Jewish Review of Books also reports inflammatory rhetoric at the Intel protests, including cries of “Nazis!” and “You Zionists caused the Holocaust!”[23]

A separate 2010 consumer campaign urged a boycott of products bearing the Edah’s Badatz certification.[27] Its proponents accused the organization of supporting activities they opposed, but their allegations did not independently establish how certification revenue was used.[27]

Accounts of financial separation from the state require care: associated communities have been described as accepting almost no direct government money, while some individuals receive national-insurance benefits.[7] Broader descriptions of total refusal of state funding or services do not resolve that distinction.[9][19] Historical descriptions also vary in treating Neturei Karta as a separate organization, an internal faction or an influential component of the Edah; the two names should not be used interchangeably.[1][10]