"Pity You Didn't Die in Gaza": What Closed Ultra-Orthodox Communities Hide. Interview

Elizaveta Guller, who lived 26 years in an ultra-Orthodox community, explains in the Vesti studio the causes of aggression in the "Sabbath wars" and reveals hidden changes inside the closed world: reforms in education, economic differences between Hasidim and Litvaks, and women activists whose names are erased from wedding invitations.

In the Vesti studio, blogger and religious sector expert Elizaveta Guller, who lived 26 years in an ultra-Orthodox community, explains the causes of aggression in the "Sabbath wars" and lifts the veil on hidden processes inside the closed world. According to her, an isolated society, deprived of leisure, splashes out unspent energy through intolerance instilled from childhood. Inside the community, a quiet revolution is underway: in schools, the Holocaust is now explained differently, and female students are taken to Yad Vashem. Behind these changes are women activists, but the community leadership tries to curb their status by erasing their names from wedding invitations. Guller debunks the myth of uniformity among ultra-Orthodox: there is an economic chasm between Hasidim and Litvaks. After October 7, some Haredim voluntarily went to serve in the "Hashmonaim" battalion. The main problem is mutual fear between secular and religious society.