Jerusalem – A court order to stop Israel’s longtime practice of exempting ultra-Orthodox Jewish men from military service has become a central issue in upcoming elections and could reshape the face of the society. If they are forced to serve, their rabbis fear, they could also enter the work force and come under the influence of the secular world.
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That matters little to Israel’s secular majority, chafing under the twin burdens of compulsory military service and financing the state subsidies and stipends that maintain the ultra-Orthodox in their insular life style.
Currently, more than 60,000 ultra-Orthodox men of military age have exemptions.
“Everyone needs to serve,” Israel’s newest political star, former TV personality Yair Lapid, said this week at the launch of his new political party. “There is no anti-ultra-Orthodox message here. We simply cannot fund you any longer and cannot be the only ones who serve the country.”
Army service for all has been a central aspect of Israeli society since the nation was founded in 1948, regarded as a social obligation and an integral part of Israeli citizenship.
Unlike modern Orthodox Jews, who live, work and serve in the military alongside secular Israelis, the ultra-Orthodox wall themselves off from the rest of Israeli society. The community, whose men are recognizable by their beards and dark suits, make up about 13 percent of Israel’s 5.9 million Jews.
Many rabbis reject the idea of military service for their followers, arguing that the ultra-Orthodox lifestyle is threatened by exposure to the outside world.
According to military data, fewer than 1,300 were drafted in the past year.
Conscription in Israel is compulsory, with men over 18 serving three years in the military and women two. Those who cannot or do not want to serve can do community service in schools, hospitals and other public institutions.
The widespread exemptions from military service have established a pattern that carries beyond military age: In 2011, 45 percent of ultra-Orthodox men did not work, instead continuing their religious studies while relying on state handouts. The system has led to deep poverty in the ultra-Orthodox sector.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, among others, has warned that the community’s high jobless rate is a threat to economic growth. Objections to the state subsidies given to the ultra-Orthodox helped fuel mass protests last summer against the government’s economic policies.
The draft privileges date back six decades, when Israel’s founders granted exemptions to 400 exemplary seminary students to help rebuild great schools of Jewish learning destroyed in the Holocaust, when 6 million Jews were killed by German Nazis and their collaborators, and entire Jewish communities were obliterated. The numbers of exemptions have steadily ballooned over the years, now reaching tens of thousands.
While there have been repeated calls over the years to end the system, ultra-Orthodox political parties have used their balance of power status in parliament to block the initiatives.
That changed in February, when the Israeli Supreme Court ordered an end to the draft exemptions by Aug. 1.
With the clock ticking, legislators have produced a stack of proposals. All would drastically reduce the number of annual exemptions for religious study to several hundred. Some would make military or community service a condition for receiving welfare allowances.
Ultra-Orthodox parties have vowed to fight any change to the status quo.
“In the worst case, seminary students will go to jail” rather than be drafted, warned ultra-Orthodox lawmaker Moshe Gafni of the United Torah Judaism Party. “It will lead to a civil war.”
Over the weekend, the political uproar over the draft came to a head when Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman hinted he would pull his fiercely secular Yisrael Beiteinu Party out of the ruling coalition if lawmakers do not support his compulsory draft bill next week.
The deadlock pushed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to move toward calling an early election, a year ahead of schedule. An announcement is expected next week, with Sept. 4 shaping up as the likely date.
An election would put off the deadline to stop the exemptions until three months after the next parliament is sworn in. But the issue promises to stay on the agenda, said Yair Sheleg, a research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute think tank.
Candidates who want compulsory conscription will say, “Give us power because we’re going to draft the ultra-Orthodox,” Sheleg said. “The ultra-Orthodox will say, ‘Give us power because we won’t let them compromise our rights.'”
Absorbing the ultra-Orthodox in large numbers would be a tough task for the military, which has run a number of small programs for the ultra-Orthodox since 1999.
It could prove a boon for Israeli society if ultra-Orthodox resistance is broken down, because entry into the labor force could follow.
An ultra-Orthodox soldier who joined the military four years ago said he did so after some hesitation. Wanting to get ahead professionally, he secretly attended a conference the navy held to try to recruit ultra-Orthodox Jews, he said.
When he first joined up, some people in his ultra-Orthodox community shunned him, he said.
“But four years later, everyone sees I stayed the same,” he said.
“In another 15, 20 years, we will look at (the program) as something that changed the face of Israeli society,” another soldier in the program predicted, also speaking on condition of anonymity.
Some 43 years ago, Moshe Dayan (remember him?), then general in the Israeli armed forces appeared on the Alan Burke (remember him?) show on television (remember that?) – and was asked by the host about yeshiva boys’ unwillingness to serve in the army. His reply: “Who needs them? They can’t follow orders anyway!”
A self hating Jew wrote this article…
Is the IDF capable of absorbing thousands of yeshiva students?
Can they accommodate the chareidim in the military?
They’re all jealous of the few religious that do serve in the army.
Cut the crap – they don’t want us in the military nor do they need us…
This is the same nonsense again and again.
VIN news should stop copy pasting Haaretz’s rubbish!
There are plenty of working charadeim in America. I am sure they can make an arrangement where they do not have to fight directly in the army. Aside from community service doesn’t the army need plenty of computer technicans? After all a good part of wars these days are computerized such as drone attacks? What about Nurses and Paprarmedics. There are plenty of areas where caredim can serve. It is out of hand. They just take programs and chilla to go to work. Oh they will get influnced by the secular world. How come no rabbonim in the past 2000 years were concerned about going to work. till moshiach comes no kollel for everyone. By the way i am an ex kollel guy who took learning series but There is a time when you have to support a family.
This issue will be the beginning of the end of Chareidi blackmail of the Israeli political system. Hopefully, the electorate will speak out strongly and the Chareidi MKs will be relegated to screaming at one another as to who was responsible for their political collapse and their patron rabbonim will be pointing fingers at the politicians for failure to articulate their views correctly. Anything that can be done to squash the Chareidi stranglehold over the Israeli government is a big mitzvah that will be rewarded in olam hazeh and olam haboah.
my vote this time will go to the party that is most likely to conscript the hareidim. Willingly or not. I speak for HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of hard-working & army-serving Israelis.
I am pretty certain that there are many Chareidim who actually look forward to the law changing. When Moshe Gafni says that this will start a civil war, it’s wishful thinking. Many chareidim feel trapped, not being able to support their families because people like Gafni told them ever since they were born that they have to fight this issue to the death. Deep down, they didn’t feel that way. Now, if the law changes, they can find a way to blame it on the new law.
They have no intention of going OTD. They just can’t stand watching others fight for them and pay for them, and then call them on it. They know there is no logical rebuttal.
“If they are forced to serve, their rabbis fear, they could also enter the work force and come under the influence of the secular world.”
This is the real world my friendly rabbi. If you can’t deal with it, take your flock to a desert somewhere.
To all the Americans out there screaming that Charedim don’t serve, how do you serve your country?
There’s a big difference between Eretz Yisroel and America. In the US, there was already a functioning goyishe society when yidden arrived, so we had to decide what about the new society was ossur and what was mutar. Shopping at the pork store–ossur; working in goyishe companies–mutar.
But in EY the frum yidden were there first, and then the Zionists built a whole secular society around them. Why should the chareidim change their ways just because of the johnny-come-lately’s?
The frum boys that will join the army will enter Iran and make a massive Chopz Em on there leaders and than all the problems will be solved.
You know – right now the system is a lose lose. Everyone is trying to seek advantage and everyone loses. It is possible to create a win win. Educate, serve, work. Everyone will gain. Exposure to a fine Jewish life style, and perhaps friendships that will break down the barriers between people. It’s time for a new generation of gifted people to draw together and find a better future.
Lets gamify this: why not institute bechinas, to which anyone can take. The top 5 or 10% of scorers demonstrate that their contribution to society is in the field of Torah. This then earns them an exemption. Everyone else serves. Keep in mind that with no army there is no Torah. A compramise like this would do a lot to help the general society recognize that with no Torah there is no army.
Bottom line, the masses of kollel as it currently exists is a recent invention. The rishonim and gedolim of yesteryear were professionals and worked. (They were doctors, diplomats, and even military generals). We should aspire to live in their footsteps, al kiddish hashem, and use the learning of Torah to bring light, not darkness into the world.
The story of Hanukkah proves that ultra- religious Jews can fight and win.. after Antiochus issued his decrees forbidding Jewish religious practice, . Mattathias the Kohen Gadol,a religious jew, killed a Hellenistic Jew who offered a sacrifice to an idol. His son Judas Maccabee led an army of Jews to victory over the Seleucid dynasty in guerrilla warfare.The Charedi jews could be trained to become Israel’s secret weapon against the Arabs using guerrilla warfare .
One of the inaccuracies in the above article is that it fails to mention the fact that there are many thousands of chareidim who refuse to serve, not because they are learning, not because they are afraid of secular influence, but because they are opposed in principle to the state and what its army is doing. The fact that men go without jobs for years is generally not a shitah, it is just an unfortunate consequence of the fact that one can only avoid the draft by remaining officially a student.
But those who vote, send MKs to the Knesset, support the army’s actions, and feel that the army protects them really have no excuse to dodge the draft. I think the medinah should pass a simple law to solve the entire problem: only those who go to the army have the right to vote. Then the chareidi world will be seen as consistent and principled rather than hypocritical and parasitic.