A well-known Sephardic rov from Netivot is working to launch a new chareidi political movement that would rival Shas on a national scale, following his success in challenging the party’s influence on the local level, according to a report aired Sunday on Israeli television.
Channel 13 reported that Rav Chaim Yosef Abergel is forming a party called “Mayim Chaim,” which will advocate for including general education in chareidi schools and support military enlistment for members of the chareidi community.
Rav Chaim Yosef Abergel is a son of Rav Yoram Abergel, a beloved figure in the Sephardic community who distanced himself from Shas in 2015.
Rav Abergel’s separation from Shas became evident last year when he withdrew his Bnei Yosef network from the party-affiliated Maayan HaChinuch HaTorani system and shifted it to the state-chareidi educational framework, introducing the core curriculum required by the government.
This step triggered a strong backlash from Shas. According to a report by Haaretz, the party’s newspaper printed letters that accused the newly independent schools of spreading a “broken and corrupt education” and warned that such changes would cause “the children of Israel to transgress their religion.”
In a video published in February, Rav Abergel addressed the issue of army enlistment among chareidim not studying full-time, urging them to serve in the IDF.
“The entire Jewish people are one family [and] it is impossible to ignore the needs of the Jewish people,” he said. “It is impossible to denigrate, God forbid, those holy warriors who gave their lives for the sanctification of God’s name.”
“A person who goes out to earn a living, instead of working in a pizzeria or a butcher shop or a garage, let him go in the army,” Abergel added — asserting that there are service tracks in the military which are compatible with maintaining a chareidi lifestyle.
His statements stand in sharp contrast to those of many senior rabbinic leaders in both the Sephardic and Ashkenazi worlds. Rav Moshe Maya said on Kol Baramah Radio last year that it was “forbidden [even] for those who don’t study [full-time] to go to the army” because they would “end up violating the Shabbos.”
Although some ministers affiliated with Shas have at times expressed views that echo Rav Abergel’s on limited chareidi conscription, the party itself has distanced itself from such remarks.
The military has indicated that it is short roughly 12,000 soldiers to fill its current operational needs amid the ongoing war. Of that number, 7,000 are expected to serve in combat roles.
Today, about 80,000 chareidi men aged 18 to 24 are eligible to be drafted but have not joined the military. Since July 2024, the IDF has distributed 18,915 initial draft notices to chareidi men, but by late April, only 232 had responded by enlisting — and just 57 of them were assigned to combat units.
A 2024 report by the Israel Democracy Institute found that, as of last summer, at least 22 percent of chareidi yeshiva students under 26 were employed, which technically violated the rules of their now-nullified draft exemption.
Previously, chareidim of enlistment age could defer army service by studying in yeshiva and renewing their deferments annually until they reached an age where they were no longer required to serve. That changed in June of last year, when the High Court of Justice ruled there was no legal foundation for the long-standing exemption system.
{Matzav.com Israel}