Dek: At the very moment Israel’s political system is again deadlocked over Haredi military service, Rabbi Karmi Gross has turned a 13-year experiment into something far more important than an experiment: a working model of Torah, technology, responsibility and Jewish unity.
By Washington Jewish Journal Staff
On Tuesday, November 3, the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces walked into a beit midrash in Gan Yavne and spoke directly to young Chareidi men preparing to serve.
The room looked unmistakably like a yeshiva: rows of white shirts and black kippot, sefarim open on the tables, an aron kodesh at the front. Yet Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir had not come merely for a ceremonial photograph. He had come to Derech Chaim, Israel’s pioneering Chareidi hesder yeshiva, to address one of the most urgent and emotionally charged questions in Israeli life.
“The IDF is not seeking to change your identity. Our goal is for you to enter the army Chareidi and leave Chareidi,” Zamir told the students.
Those words mattered because of who said them. They mattered even more because of where he said them.
For more than a decade, Rabbi Karmi Gross has been building the institution in which that promise could be tested—not as a political theory, not as a campaign slogan and not as a one-day pilot program, but in the lives of actual talmidim. Derech Chaim asks its students to learn Torah seriously, master advanced technology, serve the Jewish state meaningfully, support families with dignity and emerge from the entire process more deeply committed to their religious identity.
In a country where the argument over Chareidi enlistment has repeatedly toppled agreements, hardened camps and threatened coalitions, Rabbi Karmi Gross has done something strikingly different: he has built.
A visit larger than the moment
Zamir’s visit brought together the military, the yeshiva world and the growing infrastructure designed to help Chareidi men serve without surrendering the life they are trying to preserve. Rabbi Karmi Gross, who founded and heads Derech Chaim, joined Yossi Levi, CEO of the Netzah organization and head of the Chareidi hesder yeshiva network, along with rabbanim, commanders, educators, activists and graduates of Chareidi military programs.
Organizers described it as the first visit by a sitting IDF chief of staff to a Chareidi yeshiva. Whether viewed as a historic first or simply a long-overdue encounter, the symbolism was unmistakable: the most senior officer in the IDF had come into the beit midrash to listen, to recognize what had already been accomplished and to make a personal commitment about what service should look like.
Zamir spoke of sifra v’saifa—the book and the sword—not as competing symbols but as obligations that can coexist. He described the students as contemporary Nachshons, young men willing to enter difficult territory before the path has become socially comfortable. He also acknowledged that accommodation cannot end with a few special units. Commanders themselves, he said, must understand the Chareidi world, respect the faith of the soldiers they lead and be trained to protect the conditions that make authentic religious service possible.
The students, for their part, did not present themselves as passive recipients of a special arrangement. Bochurim from Derech Chaim’s Jerusalem branch demonstrated an advanced radar-based sensor they had developed to map terrain for autonomous robots and improve operational vision on the battlefield. It was a concise illustration of the yeshiva’s premise: rigorous Torah identity and high-level contribution are not mutually exclusive.
The chief of staff also explained the name of the IDF’s multi-year plan, Hoshen. Its 12 core areas correspond to the 12 stones of the choshen and, symbolically, the 12 tribes. Each stone remains distinct; together, they form something whole. In the Derech Chaim beit midrash, that metaphor did not feel abstract.
Rabbi Karmi Gross: the educator who built what politics could not
Rabbi Karmi Gross’s strength is not theatrical. It is institutional.
It is the strength required to hold an idea steady through years when almost every political incentive encouraged people to retreat to their corners. It is the power to absorb criticism from opposing directions and continue laying bricks: another shiur, another relationship with an army unit, another academic partnership, another student who needs reassurance, another parent who needs to know that choosing service will not mean choosing spiritual abandonment.
Born and raised in Miami Beach, Rabbi Gross grew up in a home where Jewish education was not merely a profession. His father, Rabbi Alexander S. Gross, z”l, was a transformative American Jewish educator who founded and led the Hebrew Academy of Miami Beach, later named in his honor. The younger Rabbi Gross studied in leading yeshivot, including Lakewood, Heichal HaTorah and Itri, and went on to earn advanced degrees in education, including work in moral philosophy and Talmudic texts.
His career has stretched across more than four decades of chinuch. He helped establish Yeshiva Maarava and served among its earliest educators. He spent years as a day-school principal in Vancouver, Detroit and Los Angeles, became known for curriculum development, and advised schools in North America and South Africa. He made aliyah, served as a communal rav in Ramat Beit Shemesh and continued asking an educator’s most important question: What does this generation actually need?
That question led him toward a population that did not fit neatly into Israel’s available boxes. These were serious Chareidi young men who wanted intensive Torah learning but did not necessarily envision a lifetime in kollel. They wanted to contribute to the country, build professions and support future families, but they did not want entry into the army or workforce to require an exit from the Chareidi world.
For years, the prevailing assumption was that such students would eventually have to choose one identity at the expense of another.
Rabbi Gross refused the premise.
The educational lineage behind that refusal is part of a broader Gross family legacy of seeing each student as an individual soul rather than as a demographic category. Washington Jewish Journal has previously explored that legacy through the work of Rabbi Shraga Gross and Rabbi Alexander Sender Gross. In Rabbi Karmi Gross’s hands, the same instinct became a national institution.
What Rabbi Karmi Gross built at Derech Chaim
Derech Chaim began 13 years ago with eight students. Its novelty was never simply that Chareidi men would enlist. Its innovation was the creation of a full ecosystem around them.
The early model paired two serious daily sedarim of Torah study with evening technological training. Students built foundations in computer science and cyber defense before entering military service, where their training could be used in intelligence and technology units. During service, they maintained structured Torah learning and an ongoing connection to the yeshiva. The goal was not merely enlistment; it was a continuous Chareidi life extending through yeshiva, the IDF, higher education, employment and family.
That continuity explains one of Rabbi Gross’s most revealing formulations: “Torah has to happen all the time.” At Derech Chaim, Torah is not put on pause while a student earns a degree or wears a uniform. It remains the organizing center of the student’s day and the measure by which the rest of life is understood.
The current Derech Chaim network reflects that widening vision. Its technological programs in Gan Yavne and Jerusalem combine advanced Torah study with academic and professional preparation. Its integrated Ateret Tzvi track adds a combat path, pairing Torah and degree studies with preparation for service as soldiers and commanders. The yeshiva’s own description of the process is deliberately comprehensive: personal intake, years of Torah and training, meaningful military service, continued religious and emotional support, and then a guided transition into adult life.
The Gan Yavne program has directed graduates toward units including 8200, Unit 81, Matzpen, Matzov and Ofek—places where technological ability can have immediate national value. The curriculum has included computer science, electronics, electro-optics, industrial engineering and related disciplines, depending on campus and track. Students who arrive without sufficient background in mathematics or core subjects are not dismissed as incapable; they are expected to work, and the institution builds bridges to help them catch up.
The schedule is demanding by design. This is not a shortcut for students looking for less Torah, less effort or an easier route through military obligations. It asks for more: long hours of learning, academic discipline, preparation for service and the courage to choose a path that may not yet be fully accepted by one’s social environment.
The results are no longer theoretical
When Derech Chaim celebrated its tenth anniversary, its Gan Yavne program had already grown to roughly 150 students, including dozens serving in the IDF, and its graduates numbered in the hundreds. More recent reports place the yeshiva above 160 students. The movement it helped ignite is larger still: the Chareidi hesder network now encompasses 18 yeshivot and more than 1,000 students, according to figures presented during Zamir’s visit.
Those numbers remain modest beside the scale of Israel’s overall Chareidi population. But they are no longer anecdotal. They show repeatability. They show demand. Most of all, they show that the central claim behind Derech Chaim has survived contact with reality.
Students can enter as committed Chareidi bnei Torah, acquire sophisticated skills, serve in consequential roles, preserve daily religious practice and leave positioned to support their families. Graduates have become technologists, soldiers, officers and working members of Israeli society without treating Chareidi identity as an obstacle to be discarded.
The advanced sensor shown to Zamir made that achievement visible in miniature. A debate often conducted in the language of burden and exemption suddenly became a demonstration of capacity. The question was no longer only, “How many Chareidim can the army recruit?” It became, “What can Israel gain when it invests in their success?”
Why this moment in Israeli politics matters
Zamir arrived at Derech Chaim at an extraordinary political moment.
Israel’s October 27 election produced no governing majority. Final results showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aligned bloc with 53 seats, the opposition bloc led by former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot with 48, and the two Arab-led lists with 19. As the country entered coalition negotiations, the Chareidi parties again held potentially decisive leverage. On the very day of Zamir’s visit, Shas announced that it would recommend Netanyahu after he renewed his commitment to regulate the legal status of yeshiva students. United Torah Judaism’s next move remained an important variable.
The draft question is therefore not peripheral to the formation of Israel’s next government. It is one of the questions around which that government may be built—or fail to be built.
The legal background is equally unsettled. The Knesset passed a temporary measure in July designed to suspend arrests and proceedings against yeshiva students who had not reported for service. Israel’s High Court froze and then struck down the measure. Earlier court decisions required broader enforcement of the existing draft law and personal consequences for evasion. Political efforts to create a lasting arrangement have repeatedly stalled.
Meanwhile, the IDF says its need is immediate. In Knesset testimony earlier this year, a senior manpower officer described a shortfall of approximately 12,000 soldiers, including thousands of combat troops. Zamir tied that need directly to the lessons of October 7 and the demands of a long, multi-front war. The army, he said, must be larger, stronger and more prepared.
Haredi enlistment has risen, but not at a scale that resolves the crisis. Roughly 4,300 Haredi men enlisted between July 2025 and June 2026, according to figures reported during the election debate, up substantially from the prior year. The growth is real. So is the distance still to travel.
This is precisely why Derech Chaim matters now.
Politics tends to frame the issue as a collision between two absolutes: either the state compels, or the state exempts; either Torah is protected, or equality is defended. Rabbi Gross’s work does not erase the hard legal and moral questions, and no single institution can settle a national draft policy. But Derech Chaim reveals how much possibility disappears when Israel treats the issue only as a contest of force.
Trust matters. Serious Torah infrastructure matters. Commanders who understand the religious needs of their soldiers matter. Academic preparation matters. A path to dignified employment matters. Parents need confidence that their sons will be protected; the country needs confidence that service will be real and consequential. Derech Chaim has spent 13 years constructing both forms of confidence at once.
Rabbi Karmi Gross: leadership between two worlds
The easiest way to lead in a polarized environment is to choose a camp, master its slogans and direct anger outward. Rabbi Gross chose a harder form of leadership.
He has insisted that the Chareidi community’s spiritual fears be taken seriously while also insisting that responsibility for the Jewish people cannot be someone else’s problem. He has argued that Torah study is not weakened when a ben Torah acts with courage, discipline and concern for the nation. He has also challenged Israeli institutions to stop demanding integration without building conditions in which integration can succeed.
That posture requires a rare combination of conviction and openness. Too soft, and the model loses religious credibility. Too rigid, and no partnership with the army, universities or employers is possible. Too political, and the students become symbols in someone else’s campaign. Too cautious, and the institution never grows beyond eight young men in a room.
Rabbi Gross held the center—not a bland center of compromise for its own sake, but a demanding center in which multiple obligations remain fully alive.
His public voice has often been blunt. Earlier this year, frustrated by the circular politics of the draft debate, he argued that the system lacked fresh thinking. Change, he said, can come from the ground up when credible options are built and supported. His phrase was simple: “You build it, they will come.”
He had already proved it.
His power is the evidence around him: talmidim learning Gemara in the morning; students mastering engineering and code at night; graduates serving in intelligence and technology; young men preparing for combat; rabbanim remaining connected during service; families discovering that responsibility and religious seriousness can reinforce one another.
There is a particular kind of bravery in being first. The first students paid a social price. Their parents carried anxieties for which there was no long record of reassurance. The founding team worked with institutions that did not yet have a tested language for what they were attempting. Rabbi Gross kept going because he could see not only the risk of the path, but the cost of leaving that path unbuilt.
A model Israel should be ready to scale
The next stage cannot depend on admiration alone.
If Israel is serious about widening Chareidi service, it should study what Derech Chaim has learned: recruit through trust rather than humiliation; preserve serious learning rather than offering religious identity as decoration; begin academic and technological preparation before enlistment; maintain rabbinic support during service; train commanders for the responsibility of leading Chareidi soldiers; create both technological and combat tracks; and connect military service to long-term employment and family stability.
Government policy is necessary. Philanthropic support is necessary. The IDF must enforce its commitments in everyday practice, not only from a podium. Chareidi educators willing to accept communal criticism will need protection and resources. Universities and employers must treat these students not as a public-relations category but as people capable of excellence.
Scaling must also preserve what made the model credible. A thousand students cannot be treated as a statistic. Each is a young man navigating family, faith, communal belonging, national obligation and an adult future. Derech Chaim grew because it understood that the path has to be built around the whole person.
The book, the sword and the bridge
The most important fact about Zamir’s visit may not be that an IDF chief of staff entered a Chareidi yeshiva for what organizers called the first time.
It may be that, by the time he arrived, the yeshiva was already there.
The students were already learning. Graduates were already serving. The technological work was already being produced. The religious questions were already being confronted. The bridge had been under construction for 13 years, guided by an educator whose vision outlasted the skepticism surrounding it.
At a moment when Israel is again counting Knesset seats, measuring military shortages and arguing over who bears which burden, Rabbi Karmi Gross offers a different unit of measurement: institutions built, students formed, families strengthened, responsibilities accepted and Torah carried intact into places where many assumed it could not go.
That is leadership with strength. Not the strength to overpower another camp, but the strength to make a new path real. Not power expressed through volume, but power expressed through endurance, clarity and results.
Israel needs more soldiers. It needs more Torah. It needs more economic opportunity. It needs more trust between Jews who have grown accustomed to speaking about one another rather than with one another.
Derech Chaim’s answer is audacious in its simplicity: build all four.
And on November 3, with the chief of staff standing before its talmidim, the country could see what Rabbi Karmi Gross had been building all along.
Photo credits: Featured image of IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir at Derech Chaim: Chaim Twito/Netzach Association. Derech Chaim beit midrash and Rabbi Karmi Gross images: Courtesy of Beit Midrash Derech Chaim, via Ynet.
Sources and further reading: Derech Chaim Yeshiva Network; Israel Ministry of Defense overview of the Derech Chaim track; IDF chief’s November 3 visit; Belaaz video and report; Rabbi Gross on the model’s growth and the national draft debate; ten-year profile of Derech Chaim; Knesset testimony on IDF manpower needs; and 2026 election results and coalition outlook.
