After October 7, this haredi woman refuses to stand apart from Israeli society

Kroizer was born into one of Jerusalem’s most established Lithuanian haredi families. Her lineage traces back to the Hebron Yeshiva community, whose roots lie not only in scholarship but in rupture.

During the Arab riots of 1929-1930, the Jewish community of Hebron was massacred and dismantled, forcing its religious leadership to relocate to Jerusalem. From that upheaval emerged new centers of Torah life, one situated in the heart of Givat Mordechai, where Kroizer’s family would go on to take an integral part in establishing a prominent Torah hub that has shaped and continues to shape generations of students.

Her relatives included leading rabbinic figures: yeshiva heads, top dayanim (judges), and a Jerusalem chief rabbi. Authority, learning, and communal loyalty were not abstract values in her childhood; they were in her very DNA. The message was clear and consistent: Torah study stood above all else, and the community existed to protect it.

For much of her early life, Kroizer followed that path without question. She attended Orthodox schools, married young, and entered a conventional haredi arrangement: Her husband studied while she worked to support the household. When she joined Israel’s hi-tech sector, first in more sheltered environments and later at Intel, she crossed a boundary that many in her community still viewed with unease, especially in the early 2010s.

“It was the first time I had ever worked in a mixed environment,” she recalls. “The first time speaking to men I wasn’t related to. I was incredibly shy in the beginning.”

This unfamiliarity did not last long however, as she was unable, as she puts it, “to keep quiet.” She quickly advanced into managerial roles. Yet professional success did not translate into ideological comfort. The haredi workplace model, particularly for women, was built on the assumption that career ambition should remain secondary, a means that always serves the family’s every Orthodox need. Not everyone wanted that strict hierarchy, and Kroizer increasingly knew she did not.

“He was extremely bright,” Kroizer says of her son. “I wanted to give him tools. Torah and avodah [labor]. I wanted him to have options.”

Friends soon told the couple about a relatively new framework piloted by the government: mamlachti haredi education, a state-recognized system that combined full Orthodox observance with core academic studies.

“Choosing it felt liberating. In the traditional system, I always felt scrutinized by the system,” she explains, “my way of life, what my children might say in class. In the mamlachti school, we were truly accepted. We finally had a voice regarding the way we wanted our kids to be educated.”

That sense of relief came at a cost. Within their close-knit community, the decision was perceived as an act of rebellion. Kroizer and her husband had been firmly “inside.” This single deviation toward modernity was treated as a major transgression. Their daughters felt the backlash in their own schools. Social interaction became increasingly hostile. Rumors spread. Kroizer’s husband was even forcefully told not to pray in his synagogue anymore. Eventually, the entire nuclear family was shunned.

The family relocated, only to find that the stigma followed them. It took time to accept that reconciliation with their former circles was unlikely. What emerged instead was something new: a network of like-minded families who shared similar experiences of tension, exclusion, and quiet dissent.

A decade ago, such families were isolated. Social media has now changed that. Initially anonymous, these connections gradually evolved into an open community, anchored by a synagogue that prioritized inclusion without abandoning Halacha. Attendance increased, participation deepened, and for the first time, Kroizer felt that community life enhanced rather than constrained her family’s religious engagement.

Out of that space of acceptance emerged passionate activism. The freedom to think independently, Kroizer argues, creates the conditions for moral responsibility. She channeled this drive into founding an organization dedicated to addressing sexual abuse and supporting its victims in the haredi world, called Hineni – Lo Tishtok (“Here I am – You shall not be silent”).

“We don’t want to destroy the haredi way of life,” she insists. “We want to modernize it for the sake of the people inside it. Parents and children often have very little awareness or control. That must change. We have a duty to better the lives of our children, not pass on the negative tendencies of the past.”

For Kroizer, autonomy is not subversive to community; it is its ethical prerequisite. The problem arises when systems eclipse individuals. Not everyone wants or needs this path, she acknowledges, but many do. The goal is not uniformity or seclusion but rather the ability to choose both.

Her critique extends to Torah study itself.

Despite everything, Kroizer is clear about one thing: She remains Orthodox.

“We love this world,” she says. “But we want accountability. That means responsibility for the people around us.”

That philosophy took on new urgency after Oct. 7. The attacks, she argues, shattered long-standing assumptions within the haredi community, particularly concerning the belief that non-participation in National Service is sustainable.

“We were raised to think we weren’t needed,” she says. “There was a law that facilitated non-conscription. If we were needed, they would surely cancel it and draft us.”

Now that logic no longer holds. Kroizer rejects simplistic solutions. Forcing haredi men into existing army frameworks, she says, will fail.

“What is needed instead is a carefully designed integration model that respects religious life while demanding civic contribution; a careful and considerate transitional method, not numerical quotas, treating young haredi men as cattle.”

“These transitions need to feel safe,” Kroizer explains, “with real incentives, real planning. Parents need to believe that their children won’t lose their values, while simultaneously creating an incentive model that we pave the way for a better life.”

Political leadership, in her view, has little interest in such nuance. Rabbinic authority has increasingly adopted what she calls a “command structure,” rewarding obedience over learning. “They don’t ask how well a young bachur [Torah student] studies,” she says. “They ask how well he obeys. That is a very toxic dynamic.”

She argues for individual outreach instead of drafting quotas and systematic coercion. “These young men and their families deserve several different options and to be able to choose the most suitable one for them. Timing matters.

Trust matters. This is a massive decision that carries a host of consequences for their social and cultural standing. You can’t effect such monumental change through community-based threats and rigid government orders. These young men aren’t familiar with these concepts of state loyalty. It is a process of transition, not a swift revolution.”

Politically, she describes herself as homeless. The haredi political parties serve a narrow-minded mainstream. The other larger parties pursue electoral blocs with the power-hungry haredi political elites, effectively condoning their negative activity in some sort of procrastinated, elaborate political game. Real change, she believes, comes from those willing to take that first step, to break away from the suffocating mold, just as she did with her son’s education.

“We are haredi Israelis,” she says. “We want to belong. We live here. That means taking responsibility wherever it is needed on our behalf.”

Today, Kroizer believes the community is better positioned than ever before. The question is whether it will seize the opportunity.

“I hope,” she says, “that we learn to demand a better future, for ourselves and for everyone we share this land with.”