Seven yeshivas with over 3000 students.
By Hezy Laing
Netzach Yehuda, the newly consolidated network of Haredi army yeshivas, marks a major turning point in the evolving relationship between the ultra‑Orthodox community and the Israel Defense Forces.
The initiative builds on the legacy of the original Netzach Yehuda Battalion, founded in 1999 with only a few dozen volunteers, which over the years grew into a respected combat framework and became the primary address for Haredi military service.
What began as a single battalion has now matured into a nationwide educational‑military system designed to prepare young Haredi men for service while preserving strict religious standards.
Today, the Netzach Yehuda network operates seven yeshivas, a number that has doubled in just three years as demand surged among families seeking a protected, rabbinically supervised path into the army.
These campuses—located in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Beit Shemesh, Safed, and central Israel—serve over 3,000 students, while more than 1,500 graduates are currently active soldiers in combat, intelligence, logistics, and command tracks.
The network is guided by prominent rabbinic leaders including Rabbi Yitzhak Bar‑Chaim, Rabbi David Fuchs, Rabbi Tzvi Klebanow, and Rabbi Yaron David, who oversee both Torah study and the religious environment maintained during service.
A natural point of comparison is the Zionist hesder system, which blends Torah learning with shortened military service and has long been a pillar of the national‑religious community.
Hesder yeshivas today enroll approximately 10,000 students, spread across more than 70 institutions, and their graduates are deeply integrated into the IDF’s combat and officer corps.
Netzach Yehuda differs in ethos and structure: hesder is rooted in religious‑Zionist ideology, while Netzach Yehuda is built around preserving Haredi lifestyle norms—gender separation, enhanced kashrut, and continuous rabbinic oversight—within a military framework.
Yet both systems share a commitment to producing disciplined, motivated soldiers grounded in Torah values.
Looking ahead, Netzach Yehuda plans to expand to ten yeshivas within five years, introduce specialized tracks for cyber and intelligence roles, and develop post‑service vocational programs to help graduates enter the workforce.
As the IDF seeks new manpower sources and the Haredi community grapples with changing expectations, Netzach Yehuda is positioned to reshape both Haredi education and the composition of the Israeli military in the coming years.
