Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) centrality to the Israeli experience is a surprising development: at the time the state was founded, Israel’s Haredi community amounted to a handful, mainly from the Old Yishuv and a small number of immigrants, refugees from the European Holocaust. The Haredim did not constitute a significant factor in national life, and the political Zionist leadership assumed that the community’s power would wane, that its best years were behind…