As someone who always takes his own calls, Rav Moshe Hillel is able to rattle off a list of kollelim that have already been forced to inform avreichim of painful cuts. “In yeshivos, the situation is no less difficult than in the kollelim, and we must make the utmost effort to help save the Torah world.”

Alongside his realism, Rav Moshe Hillel points to the Torah world’s real ideological opponent: the progressive left. This message is well received across the Atlantic at a time when progressives have emerged as the biggest threat not only to the Jewish state itself, amid its worst war in history, but also to Jews in America.

Behind the series of dramatic decisions targeting chareidi education — from yeshivos and kollelim to Talmud Torahs — are High Court justices, the attorney general, and Finance Ministry officials, whom Rav Moshe Hillel sees as the most potent representatives of the political left wing in Israel.

“What’s going on in Eretz Yisrael,” Rabbi Moshe Hillel told the benefactors, a message he echoed in his address to the Adirei HaTorah audience, “is a defensive battle against the encroachment of the left, which fights against Judaism on every issue. They’ve always been against the chareidim and the Torah world, but today they’ve gone to war against yeshivos, against the Chinuch Atzmai education system, against everything holy. They’re not content with words alone but are actively working to harm Judaism and the Torah world with deeds.”

War Drums

The initiative to seek help on a large scale from America’s Torah community began to take shape in the days following the High Court ruling that turned every yeshivah bochur into a deserter and ordered the government to strip them of state funding. Rav Moshe Hillel responded at the time with uncharacteristic ferocity, speaking of the need for mesirus nefesh in a time of gezeirah (an evil decree).

“Did you mean that literally?” queried one of the litvish roshei yeshivah who came to see him. “Because Rav Aharon Leib [Steinman] ztz”l didn’t speak of the issue in terms of a time of shmad and mesirus nefesh.”

To which Rav Moshe Hillel replied: “I meant what I said, and we have to be prepared for that, because this is the first time that such an aggressive act has been made against the yeshivah world, not only in words but in deeds.”

This is mesirus nefesh in the face of opposition, but it’s not a disengagement from state institutions, as Rabbi Moshe Hillel made sure to clarify this week in talks with benefactors. In tandem with the fundraising drive, chareidi Knesset members remain in contact with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in an effort to reach a political settlement to the crisis. But the moment the High Court ruling was announced, the penny dropped that, with or without legislation, the new reality would be very different from any of the legal arrangements reached before.

The beating of war drums, meanwhile, give the attorney general and the High Court the public legitimacy to go a step further and move from words to actions. Even if the coalition succeeds in doing the impossible and passes a draft law — which we’ll come to shortly — the High Court of Justice will in all likelihood immediately reshuffle the deck by striking it down and ordering the government to continue withholding funds, at the very least.

The initiative to establish an American fund to provide for the Torah world in Israel is reminiscent of Chinuch Atzmai’s keren hasa’ot (“transportation fund”) to finance school buses, which was born at a moment of crisis for the chareidi education system but stayed around even when things improved.

In the most optimistic scenario, when the war ends and the political atmosphere makes it possible to restore state funding, the Olam HaTorah fund will remain in place and enable the roshei yeshivos a degree of financial independence. But all of that is far in the future; in the interim, the harsh fact of the High Court’s ruling means that for the first time ever, Israel’s yeshivah system finds itself in a dangerous legal environment, unfunded and prey to the whims of hostile officials.

Open Hearts

The grassroots kavod haTorah that brought the massive crowd out in the rain this week was paralleled by the large sums pledged by American benefactors over the past few weeks in advance of the roshei yeshivah’s mission. Some of these meetings took place in Israel in the days before Shavuos, as some of the philanthropists upheld their longstanding tradition of visiting Israel for Yom Tov despite the ongoing war.

Spearheading the project from the outset was Mr. Reuven Wolf, former rosh hakahal at the beis medrash of the Novominsker Rebbe ztz”l in New York, who moved to Lakewood after the Rebbe’s passing, like many New York Jews in the post-Covid era.

As the architect of a long series of charitable initiatives, and for years a close associate of Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch and the mashgiach Rav Don Segal, Wolf set what a few weeks ago seemed an unrealistic goal of raising $107 million for the fund.

When he agreed to take on the challenge on behalf of his rav, the philanthropist did so with the understanding that Rav Moshe Hillel would be fully on board, undertaking to speak with benefactors face to face, even if it meant traveling abroad. And while it’s never easy to convince people to part from their hard-earned dollars, that’s truer than ever at a time of a severe real estate slump in the US. Some of the benefactors supporting the Torah world had also donated enormous sums to emergency initiatives in Israel since the outbreak of the war, but they too answered the personal plea of the Rosh Yeshivah and in many cases undertook to double their contributions to the Torah world.

Early on, leading supporters of Tprah such as Shimon Glick, Aaron Wolfson, Itcheh Rosenbaum, Yitzchok Rokowsky, Ralph Herzka, Ezra Erani, and Boruch Jeremias undertook to contribute significant sums, swelling their already massive contributions over the years. In addition to their own pledges — including dipping into savings — all of them have put their normal lives on hold, mobilizing for this effort: arranging and hosting events, raising funds, and advocating for the Keren. Among the donors were well-established magnates as well as some who made their fortunes in the past few years.

“There’s a big difference between the American gvirim whose names we’ve known for years and the new faces,” one person involved in the fundraising effort told me in a call from America this week. “There are some for whom a request from gedolei Yisrael is sacred, and if there’s a statement that this is a time for mesirus nefesh, they’ll bring in millions from wherever they can.

“But there are others for whom philanthropy was until now, to some extent a ‘fad.’ And this is where we discovered, to our surprise, that despite or perhaps precisely because of the vicious attacks against Torah learners in Israel, the Jewish heart in America has opened up, and there’s a genuine desire to help.”

Kingdom of Kindness

Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch was the first to take off for America, heading to the Adirei HaTorah event in Philadelphia. Before he embarked, Rav Moshe Hillel made the short journey to ask his neighbor on Harav Sher Street, Bnei Brak, Rav Dov Landau, to join him on the trip, to help inspire the benefactors.

Joining the joint roshei yeshivah of Slabodka are the mashgiach Rav Don Segal and two major figures within the Sephardi Torah world: Rosh Yeshivat Ahavat Shalom Rav Yaakov Hillel, and Rav Avraham Salim, Rosh Yeshivat Ma’or HaTorah — who are leading outreach to Sephardic donors in America — as well as the Rachmistrivka Rebbe, who will appeal to the chassidic community.

Several practical questions that came up in conversations with the donors are being fleshed out alongside the actual campaign. The first question relates to the mechanism for allocating the funds. On this front, the fund will be administered by Yitzchak Rokowsky and Shimon Glick, who will allocate the funds and establish a rigorous oversight mechanism to ensure transparency. As a fund for the whole spectrum of the Torah world, the Keren will distribute donations without regard for affiliation or community.

Isn’t there a concern that a significant share of the foundation’s funds will come at the expense of longstanding donations to specific yeshivos and kollelim? This matter was considered from the outset, with the cutoff being set at a ratio of 70-30: “Rav Moshe Hillel emphasizes to the donors that the donations should not be made at the expense of existing commitments to yeshivos and kollelim,” an organizer told me. “But we calculate that even if only 70% of the funds raised are new money, it will still have been worth it.

At his speech to the Lakewood parlor meeting on Sunday evening, which was the first of seven such events, Rabbi Wolf stressed this point: “If a donor who contributes to a yeshivah instead earmarks those funds for the Keren, that does not result in a net gain.”

He explained that the Keren exists specifically to cover the deficit brought on by the High Court ruling — which exists on top of the deficit that each yeshivah and kollel needs to cover on an annual basis.

The general rule in fundraising is that people give from their profits, and not from their assets, he said. But for a one-time expense — a building campaign, for example — donors dig deep and contribute from assets not usually earmarked for tzedakah.

The Keren, he said, is encouraging people to look way beyond their normal sources of tzedakah — because of the unprecedented emergency. Mr. Wolf said that he and his wife had themselves decided to dig into a rainy-day fund, because what’s going on outside is not just a deluge, “it’s a mabul.”

The urgency with which donors responded to the call to arms, and the resulting enthusiasm from the broader community, persuaded organizers to go public with a campaign — which went live on Sunday night — for smaller donations.

Mr. Zvi Belsky, who is heading the ad hoc committee overseeing the administrative end of the Keren on the American side said, “The campaign is developing in real time, and the committee is mobilizing and responding to Klal Yisrael’s outpouring of goodwill in new ways on an almost hourly basis. Balabatim who love Torah are simply reaching out and offering to do whatever we need from them.”

“Tayere Yidden in America” — Rav Dov Landau’s unusually emotional words showed that despite the gloomy skies, he saw a ray of hope for the beleaguered yeshivah world emerging from Lakewood. Despite the last-minute arrangements, the giant turnout showed that from grassroots to philanthropists, America’s Torah world is ready to step up the plate.

“If in the past gedolei Yisrael described the American administration as a malchus shel chesed,” one of the Israeli organizers of the delegation said, “today we can reserve that title primarily for America’s Torah community, who are enlisting to save the yeshivah world in Eretz Yisrael.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1017)