The phrase, “Oy li miyitzri oy li miYotzri” seems tailor-made for this moment — Winter Zeman 5786

Photo: Flash90

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It’s not only the Knesset’s winter session that opened in an atmosphere of chaos in the aftermath of the war. The zeman choref of 5786 in the halls of the holy yeshivos also began under difficult circumstances — the likes of which the Torah world in Israel has not experienced since the founding of the state.

The coalition has not yet collapsed, but it has been severely dented. The coalition opened the winter in total paralysis, with not a single bill on the table, as a result of the chareidi parties’ voting boycott. Meanwhile, the opposition — and the “opposition within the coalition” — succeeded, or perhaps it’s more accurate to say failed (in light of Trump’s harsh reaction), in passing preliminary readings of bills to apply sovereignty to Maaleh Adumim and Judea and Samaria — moves that highlighted Netanyahu’s weakness.

At the same time, US Vice President J.D. Vance and senior members of the Trump administration visited Israel to carry out a sort of “Bibi-sitting” mission — to prevent an escalation in Gaza. Trump was quick to issue his own “don’t,” even going so far as to threaten that Israel could lose American support. In doing so, he effectively removed  any realistic option of sovereignty. Netanyahu was forced to commit that his government would not apply sovereignty — and once again, we saw that the greatest enemies of the interests of Greater Israel are often those sanctimonious figures who try to outflank the right-wing government from the right.

The opposition, for its part, achieved what it wanted. By riding on “Mashiach’s donkey” from the right, and with the help of coalition MKs and representatives of Agudas Yisrael who voted in favor, it managed to embarrass the prime minister.

The forecast made by Minister Yoav Kisch, quoted here earlier — that within two weeks, the Knesset votes would reveal whether the coalition was headed for a quick dissolution or a renewed convergence with the return of the chareidim — has already proven premature. Less than a week after the session opened, it seems the opposition has the upper hand.

This chain of failures does not stem from excessive coordination among the fragmented opposition, where at least six people see themselves as future prime minister, but mainly from conflicts within the coalition. In Israel, governments rarely fall due to opposition pressure — they usually collapse inward, under the weight of internal disputes.

Despite the failures in the plenum, Netanyahu tried to project “business as usual” and met with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to discuss the 2026 budget — just moments after Smotrich had hurled insults at the Saudis and urged that they not be taken into consideration regarding the sovereignty issue.

At this stage, given the coalition’s poor performance at the start of the session, the chances of demilitarizing Gaza and expelling Hamas from the Strip seem higher than the chances of passing the 2026 budget — which is expected to be packed with decrees and cuts in light of the war’s expenses. The prevailing assumption in the political echelons is that none of the coalition partners will have any interest in helping Netanyahu pass it and absorbing the public backlash that will inevitably come due to the harsh cuts — a reckoning that takes place at the voting booth, on Election Day.

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The visits by senior American officials, led by the vice president, caused Israeli drivers to spend last weekend stuck in endless traffic jams. Major transportation arteries across the country — especially the Tel Aviv–Jerusalem highway — were closed for many long hours to allow the vice president’s convoy to move safely. If not total victory, then at least total security.

In a kind of symbiosis that only Israel’s impossible reality can produce, chareidi demonstrators joined the spectacle, following a wave of arrests of yeshivah students who had failed to enlist — for the first time, from mainstream yeshivos — on the eve of the new zeman.

Yeshivas Ateres Shlomo, led by Rav Shalom Ber Sorotzkin — Israel’s foremost fundraiser, who happened to be in the US last week — opened the zeman with a public show of protest outside the gates of the military prison, after one of his talmidim was arrested just a day before the end of bein hazmanim.

The opening shiur on the topic of Chezkas HaBatim in Bava Basra was delivered by none other than the rosh yeshivah of Slabodka, Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch. It was a specially prepared shiur on a different masechta than the one being studied in Slabodka this zeman.

It was a surreal scene as hundreds of yeshivah students — officially defined as draft dodgers — gathered outside the gates of the military prison to protest the arrest of their fellow student, who had been dragged from his home in the middle of the night. The military police kept their distance, while the Israel Police vanished from the scene altogether, after the police commissioner made clear that he lacked the manpower to deal with the arrest of draft evaders.

When Rav Hirsch left Bnei Brak, he found the Highway 4-Geha intersection — one of the busiest in the country — blocked by demonstrators from the Peleg Yerushalmi.

The protesters, realizing where the Rosh Yeshivah was headed, cleared the road for him alone, loudly singing “Yamim al yemei melech tosif.” Of all the welcoming ceremonies held in Israel in recent weeks, this was without doubt the most striking and surprising.

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The government is stuck in a traffic jam and it’s hard to see how it gets out.

Shas, which had intended to return to the government immediately with the opening of the Knesset session, ended up being forced to withdraw even from its coalition positions in the Knesset following the wave of arrests.

“The attorney general is behind the arrests, trying to bring down the government,” Shas chairman Aryeh Deri told me — neatly expressing the dilemma of the chareidi representatives, who find themselves unable either to swallow or to spit.

On one hand, supporting the coalition while yeshivah students are being arrested is an impossible reality. On the other, in the eyes of the leaders of Shas and Degel HaTorah, toppling the government would play directly into the hands of the opposition — led by the attorney general herself, who only last weekend instructed Netanyahu to step up enforcement against draft-eligible chareidi students, in a special letter sent from her office to the Prime Minister’s Office.

The internal chareidi debate intensified this week. Within Agudas Yisrael, led by the Gerrer chassidus, the legislative option is viewed as an impossibility, and they treat the promises of Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth to bring a draft law to the table with disdain.

Even if legislation does pass, they repeatedly warn, the High Court will make a mockery of it and quickly strike it down — turning the chareidi side’s unprecedented agreement to targets and sanctions into a one-sided concession with no real return.

In Degel HaTorah and Shas, efforts continue to push through legislation, clinging to Bismuth’s promise to submit a draft bill to the committee table by this weekend.

In their view, legislation — even barely — is preferable to the current lawless situation, in which all yeshivah students will eventually be considered deserters, with arrest warrants hanging over their heads. The phrase, “Oy li miyitzri oy li miYotzri” seems tailor-made for this moment — Winter Zeman 5786.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1084)