Haredi Power Could One Day Spell Doom For Israel

Last updated on: January 10, 2012 at 6:48 pm by Jeffrey L. Falick

Haredi Power Could One Day Spell Doom For Israel 2012-01-10T18:48:00-05:00 Jeffrey L. Falick

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I realize that I’ve been somewhat single-mindedly focused on Israeli Haredim over the last several posts. It’s difficult to ignore the situation. It’s upsetting and it has implications for the State of Israel and, therefore, world Jewry.

Joshua Hersh, writing in HuffPost, has done a praiseworthy job of summing up the issues:

The Haredim do not work, and they refuse to serve in the Army — indeed, the most extreme of them reject the legitimacy of the state of Israel itself.

At the same time, they are largely dependent on nationally-provided welfare to feed and clothe their families; their education system, which does not include most of the core Israeli curriculum of math and sciences, is also funded by the state.

“The Haredim are guilty of three violations,” Yossi Klein Halevi, a prominent Israeli essayist and fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, said. “First, they are separate from us, and they don’t share in the burden of defense or taxes. Second, they demand that we subsidize them. Third, they propose to force their religious beliefs on us. It’s a level of chutzpah that I don’t think any minority in the world would allow for itself.”

Is there, indeed, any other minority in the entire world that fits the pattern of the Haredim? This is an important question that I’ve been asking myself for a long time.

The Haredim like to portray themselves as a helpless minority in Israel, but the reality is quite different:

As it is, the Haredim compose only a small fraction of the national population — around 10 percent, experts say. But their birthrates are much higher than the general population, and by mid-century, according to some estimates, Haredim could make up between a quarter and 40 percent of Israeli society.

Meanwhile, Haredim members of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, have also long-held important roles in governing coalitions, and have lately begun aggressively pushing legislation that would codify some religious rules.

“The Haredim love to say that they’re a minority,” said Shahar Ilan, a former religion correspondent for the Israeli daily Haaretz. “But they have been part of our political majority for 35 years — and a brutal part. This is how they have to be understood.”

It is highly unlikely that Israel could survive as a modern state with Haredi power of this magnitude. And I’ll go on record right now. If Haredi power and influence continue to re-define the state to the point that I no longer recognize it, I will renounce my Zionism. And my Zionism goes back generations to when my family befriended and supported Naftali Herz Imber, who wrote “Hatikvah.”

Everyone already knows that there is a way to turn this around. Cut the handouts. Force them to go to work and integrate with society and into the army. That’s it.

For the very reason that Haredim are not a powerless minority, this is unlikely to happen again for a long time. Ironically, it was Netanyahu, who in 2003 as finance minister in a government with no Haredim, made the last cuts. And they worked. The birthrate went down.

This is not just an Israeli issue. This is a Jewish issue. Israel is the largest Jewish community in the world and what happens there affects the future of us all. At a time when Diaspora Jewish leaders are concerned for the future of our own communities, an Israel transformed into a Haredi state will be the harbinger of doom for non-Orthodox world Jewry.

We have been warned.

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