Politics
High-tech and war are integrating some ultra-Orthodox Jews into Israel's secular society
Yakob Shoolman spent years studying the Torah, pouring over ancient scripture like many boys in his ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood. He lived a sequestered religious life, marrying early and having four children before he was 30.
But these days Shoolman is learning how to code in a high rise with a view of the sea and a copy of a Steve Jobs biography nearby. His faith remains the center of his identity, but, like a number of students from traditional yeshiva schools, Shoolman wants to join this nation’s vibrant technology industry.
His aspirations come at a time when ultra-Orthodox Jews face increasing resentment from a larger, secular society over religious school subsidies and other benefits, including exemption from compulsory military service for Torah students. Those tensions and a move to limit the role of the Supreme Court led to mass street protests last year as far-right nationalist and religious parties became prominent voices in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government. Many Israelis regard the power that religious parties wield as a threat to civil rights and the country’s democracy.
Students from ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities learn to code to become programmers and software developers at firms like Citibank and Mobileye.
That concern has been eclipsed somewhat as Israelis have united around the war with Hamas and a small but growing number of ultra-Orthodox Jews, known as Haredim, have started to push beyond the bounds of centuries-old tradition. They represent a generational shift that may lead to wider integration of religious conservatives into Israeli life and its economy.
“I don’t believe in separation. The gap between the Haredi and the secular is closing,” said Shoolman, 31, a student at JBH, a school that trains Haredi men to become programmers and software developers at firms like Citibank and Mobileye. “In this school, we’re exposed to many different people. It’s important to understand these worlds.”
He added that the war and an increased reliance on technology since COVID have drawn more ultra-Orthodox Jews out of their enclaves. Haredi have attended shivas for those killed by Hamas and 4,000 have volunteered for temporary emergency service in the army since the war began in October.
But moderates and secularists view such limited integration as hardly notable when Netanyahu’s government is increasing spending on Haredi projects. The government coalition’s discretionary spending for yeshiva schools — which teach little science or math — rose from $322 million in 2022 to $456 million in 2023. Hundreds of millions of dollars more have been allocated for cultural, religious and education programs, along with thousands of government funded jobs that benefit the ultra-Orthodox.
Haredim account for about 13% of Israel’s population of more than 9 million, but their average family size of about seven children is a drain on social welfare spending. The Israeli media have reported that poverty and low employment among Haredim could lead to a 16% tax increase on working Israelis and cost the nation’s economy $2 trillion over the next 40 years.
Students take a break between classes where they learn how to code and program. Ultra-Orthodox Jews face growing resentment from a larger, secular society over religious school subsidies and other benefits.
“The Haredim are the cornerstone to the clash of religion and state,” said Rabbi Uri Regev, head of Hiddush, an organization that advocates for religious freedom and equality. “This problem predates Netanyahu. All previous governments bent to the will of the Haredim.”
He added that the ultra-Orthodox, about 45% of whom are poor, “are a great weight and burden on society.”
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A 2023 survey done by Hiddush before the war found that 70% of Jews in Israel believe the country’s “most acute internal conflict” is between ultra-Orthodox and secular Jews. The study showed that those fault lines were deep when it comes to military and educational issues: 78% opposed a blanket exemption on military service for ultra-Orthodox and 69% of Jews “support complete cancellation or a significant cut in funding” for yeshiva schools. That latter figure jumps to 93% for secular Jews.
Some fear the Haredim and the extreme right Religious Zionist Party could upset the Middle East and further damage prospects for peace with the Palestinans. Best-selling author and scholar Yuval Noah Harari wrote an essay in July in the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper under the headline: “What will happen to Judaism if Israeli democracy is destroyed by supremacist zealots?” He warned of “spiritual destruction” if a “messianic state” arises to persecute “Arabs, secular people, women and LGBTQ people.” What, he asked, “if that state were to embrace a racist ideology of Jewish supremacy?”
Haredim believe that God’s will shapes all destinies and that their devotion protects the state of Israel. They have long lived in segregated neighborhoods like Mea Shearim in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv. Men wearing side curls and black hats walk with sacred books to religious schools while Haredi women are the main breadwinners and child-care providers. Their large families gather on the Sabbath to stroll amid closed shops and quieted tram lines.
This portrait was resonant in the TV series “Shtisel”, about a Haredi father and his artistic son as they confronted nosy neighbors and matchmakers on cloistered streets while navigating the clamor and temptations of an encroaching outside world. The show was widely popular in Israel and provided a common ground that — for less than an hour each night — went beyond suspicions and stereotypes to give secular Jews a glimpse of a world few were intimate with.
Students at JBH, a school that trains Haredi men to become programmers and software developers, take a break and play a video game between classes.
“The other side needs to know that we are Israelis just like everyone else,” said Yitzhak Pindrus, a Knesset member of the ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism, who blamed employers and the army for not doing more to integrate the Haredi. “We have a different culture and different traditions, but you don’t always need to come down on us.”
Computer students like Shoolman, whose wife founded a virtual reality production company, aspire to modern lifestyles and bigger incomes. That desire, however, is considered a threat by religious conservatives who worry such enticements may lead to liberal beliefs around marriage and civil rights — Haredi leaders have long opposed women praying at the Western Wall — and pull the young away from their faith.
“The Haredim are concerned that a person will become his work,” said Aaron Fruchtman, vice president of JBH, which has trained 500 Haredim since 2013, many of whom received government funds and private donations for tuition. “The question is, ‘How do we get a Haredi guy into the Israeli Defense Forces or into high-tech without him losing his religious identity?’ The Haredi idea is first you’re a servant of God, a Torah Jew. But integration in the workforce will break down barriers.”
The early days of Shoolman’s training were difficult. Like most students from yeshiva schools, Shoolman, whose family income is too high to receive public subsidies, knew no English and only a little math. “You’re starting from zero,” he said. “Literally from A,B,C.” He added that since the start of the pandemic, more younger Haredi have turned to technology, using email and rabbi-approved smartphones. His long hours of studying the Torah for years, he said, will help him with the rigors of coding and software.
“We have the ability to sit and learn and be dedicated,” Shoolman said as students played video game tennis on a big screen while others typed on keyboards. “The process of change is speeding up.” He tried to express the contradiction — the navigating of two unreconciled worlds— by joking, “I’m a mainstream, hardcore Haredi.”
The war with Hamas has led other Haredim into the military. Rabbi Ram Moshe Ravad, a Haredi who served for 29 years and retired as a lieutenant colonel and chief rabbi for the Air Force, helped enlist Haredi volunteers for short service after Oct. 7. Most had studied in yeshiva until age 26, which had allowed them military exemptions. Some volunteers went into basic training but many took nonfighting roles like mechanics, cooks and drivers.
“The Haredim are not against the army,” Ravad said. “What’s happened over the years, especially the last few years, is people have been coming out against Haredim. All these [political] movements were saying that Haredim are against the army. So the Haredim avoided serving in the army. Now we’ve come with a different approach. Whoever wants to learn the Torah should learn, and whoever isn’t learning should come [to the army].”
“The Haredim are concerned that a person will become his work,” said Aaron Fruchtman, vice president of JBH, which has trained 500 Haredim since 2013. “The question is, ‘How do we get a Haredi guy into the Israeli Defense Forces or into high-tech without him losing his religious identity?’ ”
Chemi Trachtenberg is a 21-year-old Haredi who enlisted three years ago. “It doesn’t matter if you like Bibi [Netanhayu] or not, if you like the Haredim or not,” he recently told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, an international news service. “At the end of the day they [Hamas] want to kill us and we need prayers and weapons.”
The “Israelization” of the younger generation “of Haredim was already well underway when this war began,” Anshel Pfeffer wrote in a November opinion column in Haaretz. “It was only natural that those who were already less committed to cutting themselves off from society would feel shame as they saw hundreds of thousands of men and women their age being called up on the day of the [Hamas] massacre.”
He added: “For now, though, they remain a minority in their community. Aside from praying for Israel’s salvation, most of the Haredi groups have continued life as before.”
Regev, the rabbi, said to suggest the ultra-Orthodox are joining society is “an overly rosy characterization” when so many Haredim don’t have well-rounded educations that would benefit the nation’s economy. “The Haredi’s attitude of spiritual strengthening is anathema to the larger secular society,” he said, adding that the ultra-Orthodox oppose secular marriage, civil rights and using public transportation on the Sabbath. “They rely on the public coffers to perpetuate their own poverty.”
Regev said Israel faces two existential questions: the relationships between religion and state, and between Jews and Arabs. The one between religion and state, he said, often appears irreconcilable as the ultra-Orthodox place the sacred above the temporal even when it comes to immediate threats — from COVID to war — against Israel’s future.
Pindrus, the legislator, disagreed: “Haredim are part of the State of Israel,” he said. “What hurts the State of Israel hurts Haredim. Right now we’re in a period of pain, and we’re all feeling this pain.”
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The city of San Diego sued the federal government to stop the construction of razor wire fencing on city-owned land near the U.S.-Mexico border, accusing federal agencies of trespassing and causing environmental damage.
The city filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for Southern California on Monday. The complaint named Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth among the defendants.
The city accused the federal government of acting without legal authority when they entered city property in Marron Valley and began installing razor wire fencing.
“The City of San Diego will not allow federal agencies to disregard the law and damage City property,” said City Attorney Heather Ferbert in a news release. She said the lawsuit aims to protect sensitive habitats and ensure environmental commitments are upheld.
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San Diego is suing the federal government to stop the construction of razor wire fencing on city property in Marron Valley. (Justin Hamel/Bloomberg via Getty Images, File)
According to the lawsuit, federal personnel including U.S. Marines accessed the land without the city’s consent, and damaged environmentally sensitive areas protected under long-standing conservation agreements.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth were among the federal officials named in San Diego’s lawsuit. (Reuters/Brian Snyder; AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
San Diego argues the fencing has blocked the city’s ability to manage and assess its own property and could jeopardize compliance with environmental obligations.
An American flag can be seen through the barbed wire surrounding the CoreCivic Otay Mesa Detention Center on October 4, 2025 in San Diego, California. (Kevin Carter/Getty Images)
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The lawsuit also accuses the federal government of trespassing and beginning construction without proper authority or environmental review, and unconstitutionally taking the land in violation of the Fifth Amendment.
Fox News Digital reached out to DHS and the Pentagon for comment.
Former vice presidential contender and current aw-shucks Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced this week that he won’t run for a third term, dogged by a scandal over child care funds that may or may not be going to fraudsters.
It’s a politically driven mess that not coincidentally focuses on a Black immigrant community, tying the real problem of scammers stealing government funds to the growing MAGA frenzy around an imaginary version of America that thrives on whiteness and Christianity.
Despite the ugliness of current racial politics in America, the fraud remains real, and not just in Minnesota. California has lost billions to cheats in the last few years, leaving our own governor, who also harbors D.C. dreams, vulnerable to the same sort of attack that has taken down Walz.
As we edge closer to the 2028 presidential election, Republicans and Democrats alike will probably come at Gavin Newsom with critiques of the state’s handling of COVID-19 funds, unemployment insurance and community college financial aid to name a few of the honeypots that have been successfully swiped by thieves during his tenure.
In fact, President Trump said as much on his social media barf-fest this week.
“California, under Governor Gavin Newscum, is more corrupt than Minnesota, if that’s possible??? The Fraud Investigation of California has begun,” he wrote.
Right-wing commentator Benny Johnson also said he’s conducting his own “investigation.” And Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton is claiming his fraud tip line has turned up “(c)orruption, fraud and abuse on an epic scale.”
Just to bring home that this vulnerability is serious and bipartisan, Rep. Ro Khanna, the Silicon Valley congressman rumored to have his own interest in the Oval Office, is also circling the fraud feast like a vulture eyeing his next meal.
“I want to hear from residents in my district and across the state about waste, mismanagement, inefficiencies, or fraud that we must tackle,” Khanna wrote on social media.
Newsom’s spokesman Izzy Gardon questioned the validity of many fraud claims.
“In the actual world where adults govern,” Gardon said, “Gavin Newsom has been cleaning house. Since taking office, he’s blocked over $125 BILLION in fraud, arrested criminal parasites leaching off of taxpayers, and protected taxpayers from the exact kind of scam artists Trump celebrates, excuses, and pardons.”
What exactly are we talking about here? Well, it’s a pick-your-scandal type of thing. Even before the federal government dumped billions in aid into the states during the pandemic, California’s unemployment system was plagued by inefficiencies and yes, scammers. But when the world shut down and folks needed that government cash to survive, malfeasance skyrocketed.
Every thief with a half-baked plan — including CEOs, prisoners behind bars and overseas organized crime rackets — came for California’s cash, and seemingly got it. The sad part is these weren’t criminal geniuses. More often than not, they were low-level swindlers looking at a system full of holes because it was trying to do too much too fast.
In a matter of months, billions had been siphoned away. A state audit in 2021 found that at least $10 billion had been paid out on suspicious unemployment claims — never mind small business loans or other types of aid. An investigation by CalMatters in 2023 suggested the final figure may be up to triple that amount for unemployment. In truth, no one knows exactly how much was stolen — in California, or across the country.
It hasn’t entirely stopped. California is still paying out fraudulent unemployment claims at too high a rate, totaling up to $1.5 billion over the last few years — more than $500 million in 2024 alone, according to the state auditor.
But that’s not all. Enterprising thieves looked elsewhere when COVID-19 money largely dried up. Recently, that has been our community colleges, where millions in federal student aid has been lost to grifters who use bots to sign up for classes, receive government money to help with school, then disappear. Another CalMatters investigation using data obtained from a public records request found that up to 34% of community college applications in 2024 may have been false — though that number represents fraudulent admissions that were flagged and blocked, Gardon points out.
Still, community college fraud will probably be a bigger issue for Newsom because it’s fresher, and can be tied (albeit disingenuously) to immigrants and progressive policies.
California allows undocumented residents to enroll in community colleges, and it made those classes free — two terrific policies that have been exploited by the unscrupulous. For a while, community colleges didn’t do enough to ensure that students were real people, because they didn’t require enough proof of identity. This was in part to accommodate vulnerable students such as foster kids, homeless people and undocumented folks who lacked papers.
With no up-front costs for attempting to enroll, phonies threw thousands of identities at the system’s 116 schools, which were technologically unprepared for the assaults. These “ghost” students were often accepted and given grants and loans.
My former colleague Kaitlyn Huamani reported that in 2024, scammers stole roughly $8.4 million in federal financial aid and more than $2.7 million in state aid from our community colleges. That‘s a pittance compared with the tens of billions that was handed out in state and federal financial aid, but more than enough for a political fiasco.
As Walz would probably explain if nuanced policy conversations were still a thing, it’s both a fair and unfair criticism to blame these robberies on a governor alone — state government should be careful of its cash and aggressive in protecting it, and the buck stops with the governor, but crises and technology have collided to create opportunities for swindlers that frankly few governmental leaders, from the feds on down, have handled with any skill or luck.
The crooks have simply been smarter and faster than the rest of us to capitalize first on the pandemic, then on evolving technology including AI that makes scamming easier and scalable to levels our institutions were unprepared to handle.
Since being so roundly fleeced during the pandemic, multiple state and federal agencies have taken steps in combating fraud — including community colleges using their own AI tools to stop fake students before they get in.
And the state is holding thieves accountable. Newsom hired a former Trump-appointed federal prosecutor, McGregor Scott, to go after scam artists on unemployment. And other county, state and federal prosecutors have also dedicated resources to clawing back some of the lost money.
With the slow pace of our courts (burdened by their own aging technology), many of those cases are still ongoing or just winding up. For example, 24 L.A. County employees were charged in recent months with allegedly stealing more than $740,000 in unemployment benefits, which really is chump change in this whole mess.
Another California man recently pleaded guilty to allegedly cheating his way into $15.9 million in federal loans through the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan programs.
And in one of the most colorful schemes, four Californians with nicknames including “Red boy” and “Scooby” allegedly ran a scam that boosted nearly $250 million in federal tax refunds before three of them attempted to murder the fourth to keep him from ratting them out to the feds.
There are literally hundreds of cases across the country of pandemic fraud. And these schemes are just the tip of the cash-berg. Fraudsters are also targeting fire relief funds, food benefits — really, any pot of public money is fair game to them. And the truth is, the majority of that stolen money is gone for good.
So it’s hard to hear the numbers and not be shocked and angry, especially as the Golden State is faced with a budget shortfall that may be as much as $18 billion.
Whether you blame Newsom personally or not for all this fraud, it’s hard to be forgiving of so much public money being handed to scoundrels when our schools are in need, our healthcare in jeopardy and our bills on an upward trajectory.
The failure is going to stick to somebody, and it doesn’t take a criminal mastermind to figure out who it’s going to be.
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The Wyoming Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that a pair of laws restricting abortion access violate the state constitution, including the country’s first explicit ban on abortion pills.
The court, in a 4-1 ruling, sided with the state’s only abortion clinic and others who had sued over the abortion bans passed since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, which returned the power to make laws on abortion back to the states.
Despite Wyoming being one of the most conservative states, the ruling handed down by justices who were all appointed by Republican governors upheld every previous lower court ruling that the abortion bans violated the state constitution.
Wellspring Health Access in Casper, the abortion access advocacy group Chelsea’s Fund and four women, including two obstetricians, argued that the laws violated a state constitutional amendment affirming that competent adults have the right to make their own health care decisions.
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The Wyoming Supreme Court ruled that a pair of laws restricting abortion access violate the state constitution. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Voters approved the constitutional amendment in 2012 in response to the federal Affordable Care Act, which is also known as Obamacare.
The justices in Wyoming found that the amendment was not written to apply to abortion but noted that it is not their job to “add words” to the state constitution.
“But lawmakers could ask Wyoming voters to consider a constitutional amendment that would more clearly address this issue,” the justices wrote.
Wellspring Health Access President Julie Burkhart said in a statement that the ruling upholds abortion as “essential health care” that should not be met with government interference.
“Our clinic will remain open and ready to provide compassionate reproductive health care, including abortions, and our patients in Wyoming will be able to obtain this care without having to travel out of state,” Burkhart said.
Wellspring Health Access opened as the only clinic in the state to offer surgical abortions in 2023, a year after a firebombing stopped construction and delayed its opening. A woman is serving a five-year prison sentence after she admitted to breaking in and lighting gasoline that she poured over the clinic floors.
Wellspring Health Access opened as the only clinic in the state to offer surgical abortions in 2023, a year after a firebombing stopped construction. (AP)
Attorneys representing the state had argued that abortion cannot violate the Wyoming constitution because it is not a form of health care.
Republican Gov. Mark Gordon expressed disappointment in the ruling and called on state lawmakers meeting later this winter to pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion that residents could vote on this fall.
An amendment like that would require a two-thirds vote to be introduced as a nonbudget matter in the monthlong legislative session that will primarily address the state budget, although it would have significant support in the Republican-dominated legislature.
“This ruling may settle, for now, a legal question, but it does not settle the moral one, nor does it reflect where many Wyoming citizens stand, including myself. It is time for this issue to go before the people for a vote,” Gordon said in a statement.
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Gov. Mark Gordon expressed disappointment in the ruling. (Getty Images)
One of the laws overturned by the state’s high court attempted to ban abortion, but with exceptions in cases where it is needed to protect a pregnant woman’s life or in cases of rape or incest. The other law would have made Wyoming the only state to explicitly ban abortion pills, although other states have implemented de facto bans on abortion medication by broadly restricting abortion.
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Abortion has remained legal in the state since Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens blocked the bans while the lawsuit challenging the restrictions moved forward. Owens struck down the laws as unconstitutional in 2024.
Last year, Wyoming passed additional laws requiring abortion clinics to be licensed surgical centers and women to receive ultrasounds before having medication abortions. A judge in a separate lawsuit blocked those laws from taking effect while that case moves forward.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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