An organization working to raise money for Haredi institutions in Israel says it has raised about $85 million from Americans — and $96 million total — to support yeshivas whose students are now eligible to be drafted to the Israeli military.

The campaign called Keren Olam Hatorah — which is Hebrew for “world of Torah fund” — estimates that the loss of subsidies to Haredi yeshivas will lead to a shortfall of $107 million in the coming school year and the organization aims to make up the difference through donations.

The initiative follows the Israeli High Court of Justice freezing the funding of Haredi yeshivas whose students will be obliged to report to the IDF in the same way as all other citizens. This ended a decades-long exemption, brokered at the founding of the state, that has been the source of frustration to the majority of Israeli citizens ever since.

“The Torah world is under attack,” reads a Keren Olam Hatorah ad published in the Boro Park View, the Monsey Mevaser, the Flatbush Jewish Journal, and other Haredi publications. “We will not stand idly by.” The ad refers to the funding deficit, but neither the ad nor a brochure from the organization mention the military draft. The draft is a controversial subject within Orthodox circles, where opinions on Zionism and Israel run the gamut from ardently Zionist in modern Orthodox circles to very anti-Zionist in some Hasidic sects like Satmar.

The campaign literature paints a dire and dramatic picture: “With nowhere to turn, yeshivos and kollelim are lowering their air condition usage, leaving bochurim and yungerleit to toil in the sweltering heat. Some have already limited offering meals as they scramble to make payments, while others may be forced to close their doors completely.”

According to public statements the rabbis have made, Lakewood has led the way with the most money contributed to the cause. After Lakewood, in descending order of how much money has been raised from each place, come Brooklyn, Manhattan, Deal, the Five Towns, and Monsey. Toronto,  Brazil, and Chicago have also had residents donate to the fund, according to the Yeshiva World News.

Among the many names who are shown on the rayze.it fundraising platform to have contributed to the cause are Ralph Herzka, a real estate businessman, and Yeshiva Darchei Torah, a Haredi school in Far Rockaway which emailed students’ parents urging them to contribute, according to an email forwarded by a parent and reviewed by Shtetl.

On social media, at least one Haredi critic said in a video posted online that he doesn’t believe Haredi Americans should be asked to support Haredi Israelis who can’t reach an agreement with their government.

“You raise money from poor people under false pretenses that the entire future of Judaism depends on it, and it’s not true,” said the widely followed vlogger Moshe Feldman (whose Instagram handle is volfber) in Yiddish. “In this town it costs 70,000 for tuition in the schools,” Feldman said, likely referring to the cost of sending several children to yeshiva in Lakewood. “Which means, our institutions, our future is in jeopardy, not yours.”

In a sharp reply on X (formerly Twitter), Lakewood resident Eli Steinberg, a conservative commentator on political and Jewish issues, implied that Feldman and another person in the video migrated to New Jersey from “a different state… so they can suck up *our* resources” and that they should “go back to whatever rock you crawled out from under.”

Spearheading the fundraising efforts overseas are rabbis who, according to Hamodia, lead schools in Israel. The group which comprises rabbis Dov Landau, Moshe Hillel Hirsch, Don Segal, Yaakov Hillel, Avraham Salim, and Duvid Twersky, is mostly Litvish but also includes Sephardic and Hasidic rabbis.

Some of the money raised from U.S. donors will flow through Congregation Ohr Meir in New Jersey. Other money from U.S. donors will flow through Manhattan-based Congregation Yad Shaul. Both synagogues are registered to receive tax-deductible donations. Shtetl wasn’t able to find a physical presence for either of the congregations or any information on their activities prior to this fundraiser.

In recent months, American rabbis from across the Haredi spectrum have lambasted the decision to end the Haredi military draft exemption. While proponents of the rule change point to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the rapidly growing Haredi population, the Haredi group Agudath Israel of America said that Israeli authorities have “declared war on the Torah.” 

Many Haredim — including many who support Israel’s current war — believe that studying Torah is a more effective defense than using military hardware. In April, after an Iranian missile attack, the Yeshiva World News ran an article saying that the cost of protecting Israel from the attack was higher than the cost of supporting yeshivas, a more proactive form of national security. That echoed an Agudah tweet from October, where Rav Noach Isaac Oelbaum referred to Talmud and the Psalms to assert that “Every Blatt Gemara is a missile. Every Tosfos is a rocket. Every Kapitel Tehillim is a bomb.”

Rabbi Avi Shafran, Agudah’s director of public affairs, made that organization’s position even clearer in an OpEd for Religion News Service. “From a Jewish religious perspective, a force of men immersed in Torah study contributes to Israeli national security, and is indeed essential to it,”

Keren Olam Hatorah did not respond to questions from Shtetl.