Neturei Karta is a fringe religious group of Haredi Jews that was founded in Jerusalem in 1938 after splitting off from Agudat Yisrael. It is an active opponent of Zionism and advocates a "peaceful dismantling" of the State of Israel under the belief that the Jewish people are strictly forbidden from re-establishing sovereignty in the Land of Israel until the arrival of the Messiah. To this end, the group's members believe that the existence of a Jewish state is a rebellion against God as it did not occur with divine intervention through the Messiah.
Shemaryahu Yosef Chaim Kanievsky was an Israeli Haredi rabbi and posek. He was a leading authority in Haredi Jewish society on legal and ethical practice. Known as the Gadol HaDor and the "Prince of Torah", much of his prominence came through Torah education and advice about Jewish law.
The Tal Committee was an Israeli public committee appointed on 22 August 1999 which dealt with the special exemption from mandatory military service in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) given to Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jews which had been the status quo from the time of Ben Gurion, as well as extending mandatory military service to Israeli-Arabs. The committee was appointed by Prime Minister Ehud Barak and was initially headed by former Supreme Court Justice Tzvi Tal. The committee was later headed by Yohanan Plesner before its official dissolution on 2 July 2012, two days before submitting its report, hence the term Plesner Committee.
Exemption from military service in Israel is covered by the Israeli Security Service Law, which regulates the process of Israeli military conscription. Per the law, an Israeli citizen who is drafted into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) may be exempted if an evaluation finds them to meet specific criteria. The IDF's conscription laws only apply to three communities: the Jews, the Druze, and the Circassians. Both men and women are drafted from the Jewish community, whereas only men are drafted from the Druze and Circassian communities.
The 2011 Israeli social justice protests, which are also referred to by various other names in the media, were a series of demonstrations in Israel beginning in July 2011 involving hundreds of thousands of protesters from a variety of socio-economic and religious backgrounds opposing the continuing rise in the cost of living and the deterioration of public services such as health and education. A common rallying cry at the demonstrations was the chant; "The people demand social justice!".
Religious relations in Israel are relations between Haredim, non-Haredi Orthodox, Karaite, Ethiopian, Reform, Conservative, and secular Jews, as well as relations between different religions represented in Israel. The religious status quo, agreed to by David Ben-Gurion with the Orthodox parties at the time of Israel's declaration of independence in 1948, is an agreement on the role that Judaism would play in Israel's government and the judicial system. Tensions exist between religious and secular groups in Israel.
Early legislative elections were held in Israel on 22 January 2013 to elect the 120 members of the nineteenth Knesset. Public debate over the Tal Law had nearly led to early elections in 2012, but they were aborted at the last moment after Kadima briefly joined the government. The elections were later called in early October 2012 after failure to agree on the budget for the 2013 fiscal year.
In 2013, two independent protests occurred in Israel. In May, an attempt to change the Tal Law, which excluded ultra-Orthodox Jewish men for doing military service, led to protests by Haredi against military conscription. Again in November, Bedouins in the Negev called for a 'Day of Rage' against their displacement by the Israeli government to state developed townships as a result of the Prawer-Begin plan.
Conscription of yeshiva students refers to the conscription of Orthodox yeshiva students in Israel. Since 1977, this community had been exempted from military duty or national service. In 2012, service became mandatory with a penalty of imprisonment for up to five years for draft-dodgers, although that law has never been enforced.
Yehonatan Indursky is an Israeli filmmaker and the creator of the successful Netflix series Shtisel.
Moshe Ber Beck, or Moshe Dov Beck, was a Hungarian-born American rabbi and anti-Zionist campaigner. He was the leader of one of the Neturei Karta branches in the United States.
Hapeles is a Hebrew-language daily newspaper published in Jerusalem. Like other Haredi newspapers, it is not published on Shabbat, but, instead, is put out as an expanded weekend edition.
Barood (Barud) is an Israeli bar-restaurant off Jaffa Road in Jerusalem, serving Sephardic cuisine. It was founded in 1995. The last restaurant in its area open on Shabbat, the restaurant is a frequent scene of demonstrations by Haredi Jews. The restaurant features live music.
Geulah Aliza Bloch is an Israeli teacher and politician. In 2018, she became the first female mayor of Beit Shemesh, and in 2019 she was named by The Jerusalem Post as one of the world's 50 most influential Jews.
Noam is a far-right Orthodox Jewish, Religious Zionist political party in Israel, officially established in July 2019 by an extremely conservative faction in the Religious Zionist community inspired by Rabbi Zvi Thau and his Har Hamor Yeshiva. The party's main goal is to advance policies against LGBT rights, and against what its backers call "the destruction of the family". Avi Maoz, the party's leader, was elected to the Knesset in 2021, and is the party's sole representative.
From January to October 2023, large-scale protests took place across Israel in response to the government's push for a wide-ranging judicial reform. The proposed reform aimed to give the government full control of the Supreme Court or court decisions through various ways. The government also attempted to dismantle the Israel Bar Association and change the makeup of the Judicial Selection Committee.
Ephraim "Efi" Nave is an Israeli lawyer who served as chairman of the Israel Bar Association between 2015 and 2019. He previously served as chairman of the Bar Association's Ethics Committee in the Central Israel district, as well as the district's chair.
Kaplan Force is a liberal umbrella organization based in Israel, that is carrying out protests actions against Netanyahu's government. Kaplan Force defines themselves as a civil force of a number of liberal protest organizations in Israel. They've demonstrated at the 2023 Israeli judicial reform protests and now demonstrating at 2024 Israeli protests. Kaplan Force is named after Kaplan Street which is where anti-government protests usually take place.
Yossi Erblich is a founder and chairman of the "LeMa'anchem" nonprofit organization, which specializes in medical consulting.
Eitan Herzel is the founder and CEO of Brothers in Arms, a political movement that was established as part of the protests against the judicial reform.
