Jerusalem has come to a standstill. Hundreds of thousands of Haredim have flooded the city’s main arteries, their chants echoing through the streets as schools cancel classes and universities move online. Across town, thousands more gather in a counter-protest.

Inside the Knesset, the shockwaves are already felt. Ministers from the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party, Shas, have resigned, and whispers of a coalition collapse are growing louder.

Yet despite all this tension and shadows of greater plans, the protest movement makes little strategic sense; it reads less as a calculated manoeuver than as a desperate gamble by a community running out of political leverage.

We all know why they came out on Oct. 30—not for judicial reform, not for the hostages, and not even for Israeli Prime Minister

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