Israel – Finance Minister Yair Lapid on Wednesday implored business-owners to accept ultra-Orthodox (haredi) workers into their businesses.
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“Hire haredim. Take haredim to work,” he told the Small and Medium Business conference in Tel Aviv.
Lapid acknowledged the difficulty in hiring haredi workers: training them, dealing with female customers who do not dress “modestly,” creating a comfortable work environment.
An Economy Ministry study released Monday found that 37% of employees preferred not to hire haredi workers and 30% of those surveyed (both employers and workers) preferred not to work alongside them.
Lapid said that the challenges were able to be overcome, that haredim were intelligent, hard workers and learn quickly.
“The important point is that if we, as a humane society, do not meet the challenge of bringing haredim into the work force, if we simply demand that they enlist in the army and work without enlisting ourselves to help them integrate into Israeli society, we have done nothing,” he said.
Some 28,000 haredi men are to begin receiving full exemptions from military service immediately after Passover, under the terms of the ultra-Orthodox conscription law the Knesset approved last month.
The government hopes many of these men will leave their full-time Torah studies in yeshiva and enter the workforce, and is therefore preparing programs to help them find jobs.
Until now, it has not been legally possible for ultra-Orthodox men to work without first performing military or civilian service, but the government hopes that many of the men receiving a military service exemption will decide to enter the job market.
The state has already set up two large employment and career guidance centers in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem, respectively, and others are planned to be opened in Ashdod, Modi’in Illit, Petah Tikva and Beersheba.
The Bank of Israel has warned that, given demographic trends, failure to integrate both haredim and Arab Israelis into the labor for would eventually lop 1.3% off Israel’s economy each year.
Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post
That Sinai Yisroel, trying to get Hareidim to leave the Bais Medrash.
This is gevaldige news,lets hope from now one there will be shalom al kol israel,peace with each other and prosperity for all.
A Wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Representative of the hedonistic class.
What did he bring to the table?
What has he done for children?
Time will tell if we are zoche
What bothers me the most in all of this is the Agudah of America. If America offered what Israel is doing with offering free tuition if the charediei schools offer a very basic secular education like any yeshiva in Flatbush, and then the American government makes announcement to hire charedim they would be all over it and thanking the politicians!!! It makes no sense how us in America have an issue. The Charedim in Israel have a different religion then us folks here in America.
We do not need 50000 people in kollel. What is happening is you are flooding the system with too many Talmedei Chachomim. What happens then we do not have enough money as a community to support everyone. Only people who will become a Rav a Rebbe a scholar should be supported.
The Charedi leadership is making the biggest mistake ever. This will be their downfall. Amazing but true that the Kollel system the way it’s setup today will be the one issue that will take them down from within. No one it seems has the power to change course back to the 80’s.
Mr. AlterG so do you really think the charedim will go to work like in the USA. If so please answer why they never went to work under vadas tal. Note VADAS TAL IS NOT NACHAL CHAREDI. It was a special program desighned for married yingerlit who wanted to go to work. I know the answer its because “work” is a four letter word in EY. But I am still waiting for your response. Stop being a coward and respond to my posts or I will just continue pointing out your fallacies.