Hapeles

The modern Hapeles is a Haredi daily newspaper published in Jerusalem, cataloged by the National Library of Israel as an ultra-Orthodox Hebrew publication that has appeared since 2012.[1] Its subtitle, "בטאון עולם התורה," identifies it with the Torah world.[1] The library's digital collection lists 2,610 issues and 61,379 pages dated from July 15, 2012 through September 26, 2024.[1] In 2015, the newspaper held an 11.9 percent market share within Israel's Haredi sector.[2]

The Times of Israel has described Hapeles as the daily mouthpiece of Bnei Torah, also called the Jerusalem Faction, and reported that it advances the party's opposition to military service.[3] The same report says Bnei Torah was co-founded by Rabbi Asher Deutsch and Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach.[3] A November 2021 media roundup recorded the paper's strong criticism of government efforts to encourage yeshiva students to enter the workforce, which Hapeles characterized as discrimination against the Haredi public and harm to the Torah world.[4]

A distinct and earlier publication shared the name Hapeles. It was a Hebrew-language Orthodox monthly issued in Poltava, then part of the Russian Empire. A JewishGen Yizkor-book page identifies Rabbi Eliyahu Akiva Rabinowich as its editor-in-chief and publisher and gives its publication period as 1900–1905.[5] Encyclopedia.com dates it to 1901–1905 and describes it as one of the main vehicles for Rabinowich's polemics.[6] The Jewish Virtual Library identifies Rabinowich as Poltava's rabbi from 1893 to 1917, calls him a strong opponent of Zionism, and dates the monthly to 1903–1906.[7]

A separate Yizkor-book account places Rabinowich alongside the rabbi of Kovno among the anti-Zionist rabbis and activists opposed by local Zionists during the period surrounding the Sixth Zionist Congress of 1903.[8] A 1949 educational document calls Hapeles "the anti-Zionist periodical" published by Russian rabbis before World War I and describes it as an early spearhead of Orthodox opposition to Zionism before leadership passed to German Orthodox circles associated with Agudath Israel.[9]

That document places the publication within an Orthodox anti-Zionist outlook that understood redemption as dependent on the coming of the Messiah rather than earthly political means and regarded rabbinical authorities as the proper guides for Jewish communal policy.[9] A National Library of Israel catalog entry describes HaModia as continuing the earlier Hapeles.[10] Another source cites a Berlin publication named HaPeles in which Rav Kook's essay "Afikim BaNegev" appeared in 1903–1904.[11] Thus, the dates supplied for the Poltava monthly range from 1900 to 1906,[5][7] while the relationship of the Berlin citation to that monthly remains unresolved.[11] The available sources do not establish institutional continuity between the historical publications and the modern Jerusalem daily.[1][10]

The Jerusalem Hapeles covers Israeli politics, Haredi communal affairs, and religious life from a position closely aligned with the Jerusalem Faction's worldview. In 2013, it did not report on Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's hospitalization or call on the public to pray for his recovery.[12] CEO Yaakov Levine explained that such matters were not normally covered unless the rabbi's family issued a call for public prayer, and that the paper had followed the same policy during the hospitalizations of several senior rabbis, including Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach.[12] Levine characterized such reporting as gossip in which the public had no genuine interest.[12]

During coverage of the October 2018 Tree of Life synagogue attack in Pittsburgh, Hapeles described the site as a "Jewish center" without noting the congregation's progressive affiliation.[13] This contrasted with several Haredi news websites that used the word "synagogue" and identified the congregation as Conservative.[13] Hapeles ran the report on its front page.[13]

Within Israel's Haredi media ecosystem, Hapeles combines daily news coverage with explicit factional advocacy. In 2015, its 11.9 percent market share was reported as stable.[2] Its promotion of Bnei Torah's opposition to military service and its criticism of workforce-integration policies give it a clear factional profile.[3][4]

The Herzl Institute's November 2021 roundup identified a Hapeles article published on November 3, 2021, page 2, as strongly criticizing government policies that it said discriminated against the Haredi public and harmed the Torah world by encouraging yeshiva students to enter the workforce.[4] The episode illustrates the newspaper's use of political coverage to advance its view of the Torah-study world.

In 2017, Israeli police arrested 28 members of the Jerusalem Faction on suspicion of intimidating, threatening, and harassing private and government-owned companies in an effort to compel them to purchase advertising in Hapeles.[14] Some of those arrested were Hapeles employees, including editorial-board members.[14] The investigation followed dozens of complaints from company executives and lasted six months.[14]

Police described an alleged operation run through a call center known internally as the "battle line," which selected companies to target and then directed dozens or hundreds of calls, faxes, and emails at executives and their family members, disrupting company operations and the families' daily routines.[14] Hapeles's Jerusalem offices were searched and computers were confiscated.[14] Organizations allegedly targeted included Coca-Cola, Shufersal, Materna, Tnuva, the Interior Ministry, Strauss, Terra, and Optica Halperin.[14]

Rabbi David Zicherman, identified as a student of Jerusalem Faction leader Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, rejected the arrests as a "blood libel." He cited a similar wave of arrests two years earlier that he said had produced no results because, in his view, no wrongdoing had occurred.[14]