Maybe anti-haredi vitriol is the biggest threat to Israel
Day after day, I read articles in The Jerusalem Post and other Israeli newspapers discussing the unwillingness of the haredi (ultra-orthodox) community to integrate, join the workforce, behave responsibly in terms of COVID, etc. The litany of gripes is not short, and dare I say not entirely unjustified. The writers generally feel very strongly about the issues being discussed and occasionally one even gets the sense that sometimes people writing are writing out of a genuine sense of care for the haredim.
But as I read these articles, I begin to despair. The more innovative the “solutions” are, the greater the extent to which I realize they are all based on woeful ignorance of the haredi perspective, and are therefore doomed to fail.
If secular Israel genuinely wishes to build bridges and sincerely engage with haredi Israel, two areas will require a great deal of work.
The asymmetrical tone of the discussion The common theme among the learned commentators is hishtalvut, or integration. We MUST integrate the haredim. The undertone of the articles is inevitably based on an unspoken assumption that the values of secular Israel are the objectively better set of values and “if only the haredi minority could climb on board.”
Integration of a minority into a larger majority inevitably means sacrificing some of the smaller entity’s identity. In the case of haredi Jews, this means sacrificing some of what they perceive as their Jewish identity for an alternative Israeli identity. The proposed hishtalvut necessarily involves haredim adopting (albeit in a limited way) some of the norms of secular Israel, but of course it does not involve secular Israel adopting any of the norms of the haredi world. And why would it?
That being the case, the haredi minority in this massive integration effort, rightly, do not see this as a well-meant attempt to share good values. It is merely an attempt to water down their identity.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the political arena. A proportionally constituted government, which is what proportional representation results in, is the ultimate expression of integration. Let’s mix all the votes into one big integrated cholent and see what emerges. Normally after elections, secular Israel is horrified at what happens when the haredi community has an even-handed attempt at integrating itself into the mix.
Recently this has led to discussions among commentators who “really care” about the country about how best to amend the electoral laws, to move toward a situation in which haredim have less political influence. When commentators wish to limit the ability of the haredi community to express itself democratically, the attempt to emasculate the haredi community becomes even more apparent. This is not about even-handed integration. This is about dilution and assimilation.
It seems patently obvious that many secular commentators would love nothing more than for young haredi folk to free themselves from the “shackles of the haredi lifestyle” and become splendidly secular.
Amotz Asa-El recently wrote in the Post that salvaging haredi children from the shtetl where they are trapped will now become a national goal, one for which we will scale the walls that their
rabbis have built. This is not the gentle language of someone who respects the many objectively good values to be found in the haredi world and simply wants to introduce some 21st-century ideas. Rather, this is the language of someone who wishes to completely strip young haredim of their identity.
Understandably, this toxic environment makes haredim feel very unloved, isolated and angry.
For any integrationist idea to have a chance of appealing to the haredi world, it would need to be coming from a place of love and respect for the very real values and achievements of the haredi world. Integrationist ideas will never be entertained by the haredi world if they are asymmetrically based on the approach of “primitive haredim – how can we enlighten them?”
Perhaps secular Israel can take a leaf out of Nelson Mandela’s book. Instead of attempting to swallow up the haredi world in an integrationist effort, maybe the focus should be on a rainbow nation approach in which each group’s diversity and unique contribution can be celebrated. A salad, as it were, with identifiable different pieces rather than a melting pot.
IMPOSED POVERTY
This is the far bigger elephant in the room.
Much is made of the apparent unwillingness of haredim to work. On July 5, Dan Perry commented, “Less than half of haredi men are part of the workforce, the lowest participation level of any identifiable group in Israel – and, tellingly, far less than haredim in other countries”
True, haredim in Israel display low participation in the workforce. What many people are not aware of is that most haredim in Israel are NOT actually permitted to work according to Israeli law, since only one who has completed his mandatory IDF service may work. Haredim in other countries, however, ARE permitted to work, and therefore do work.
The classic response of the secular world is, “Why should haredim be allowed to shirk their military service?” The problem is that this response by the secular Israeli world will not resonate with the haredi world, since it is coming from the perspective of the secular Israeli world. It is essentially saying, we dedicated three years of our life to our highest value, defending the State of Israel. This is obviously your highest value too, and you are shirking!
The problem is that this is not the haredi world’s highest value, and as a community that sees itself as having pre-dated the state, there is no reason why it should be. Join the army, says secular Israel, you will become more Israeli. Haredim see themselves as Jewish; they do not want to be more Israeli.
Indeed, the reality is that expecting the haredi world to show any enthusiasm for enlistment is a pipe dream. Secular Israel demanding that haredim enlist in the army is the equivalent of haredi Israel insisting that the secular enlist in yeshiva. In the eyes of haredim, the army is just as foreign an entity as Yeshiva is to a secular Israeli (more on this in a future article).
Insisting on haredim doing army service before being permitted to work is therefore not going to result in a cavalcade of haredi enlistment. That has not happened in the last 72 years, and there is little to suggest that is going to change.
Rather, the unintended (one hopes) consequence of this insistence on military service as a precondition to employment is actually mass haredi unemployment.
A massive chasm has therefore been created between secular and haredi Israel. Secular Israel is both dismayed at the intransigence of the haredim on the enlistment issue, and aggrieved at the unwillingness of the haredim to work. Haredi Israel is hyper-vigilant about attempts to enlist it’s youth in what it sees as an Israelification exercise, and is angry, disillusioned and powerless about the de facto state-imposed employment ban.
How on earth can haredim not feel an intense alienation from the state which has reduced them to penury. Why would they want to cooperate on any level?
The writer’s view: If secular Israel is serious about extending an olive branch to the haredi world and fomenting a general atmosphere of synergetic collaboration, it could do a lot worse than permit haredim to work even if – chas v’shalom – they have not done their army service. One suspects the army will not be too terribly compromised, and at the same time the workforce will benefit from the immense amount of energy that thousands of haredim who are finally permitted to work will bring.
But in the interest of integrity, please, can we stop chanting the “haredim don’t work” mantra? This is utterly unhelpful in the current environment for all parties concerned, and a distortion of the reality.