In the middle of one of the most turbulent election campaigns Israel has ever seen, and arguably the most fateful one the Haredi public has faced, a new political force has burst onto the scene: Tzeva Shachor, the "Black Color" party. Leading it is Rabbi Yaakov Chaim Miller, a well-known name in Haredi event production who spent years working behind the scenes. Now he's at the front of the fight over the draft law.
Miller looks tired when he sits down across from host Eli Gotthelf in the Kikar FM studio, but he doesn't look beaten. "We're working hard, we're tired, but with God's help, when you see that you're making progress, it gives you the strength to keep going," he says. The conversation that follows is sharp, emotional and at times heated, ranging from the future of the Torah world to the fading power of Haredi political leadership to the heavy personal price Miller says he and his family are paying.
Before getting to the platform, Gotthelf wants to know who Miller actually is. Has the Haredi world just produced a new celebrity?
"I don't think it has anything to do with celebrity," Miller says. "It has more to do with the fact that I always wanted the light of the Haredi public to shine in the street the way it should."
He traces his path back 21 years, to his start as an event producer. Back then, he says, he set out to raise the standard and the dignity of Haredi events, turning modest shtiebel gatherings into polished, well-organized productions.
Gotthelf presses for more, and a fuller picture emerges. Miller is a third-generation Jerusalemite who grew up in the Bukharim neighborhood. He also isn't who his critics say he is.
"I come from a Hasidic home, and I belong to Agudat Yisrael," he says. "Until this election, I voted for United Torah Judaism. I don't belong to the extremist faction, not to the zealots, not to anything like that. I'm an Agudat Yisrael man."
Miller bristles at opponents who cast his party as a fringe or provocative stunt. He points to the people on his list: rabbinical judges, heads of kollels, and experts on army issues, including a lawyer who has handled draft exemptions for decades. They got involved, he says, because they had reached a breaking point.
"Our party has heads of kollels, respected people, people of real stature, who decided to step out of the genuine Torah world and become the voice of the yeshiva students and avreichim," he says. "They can no longer stand by and watch what is being done to them."
