Charedim face change

LINDA GRADSTEIN THE MEDIA LINE

One of the most divisive issues in Israeli society today – drafting the ultra-Orthodox into the army – came to the fore again recently when Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the state to stop transferring money to yeshivot. The money at issue is used both for individual stipends to students and for the institutions’ operational budgets.

The court’s ruling was a sign of its frustration with the government’s slow pace in legislating the draft of Charedi men as was previously ordered. In Israel, all Jewish men are conscripted for three years and women for two years upon reaching the age of 18. Until 2012, the Charedi were exempted from army service as long as they remained full-time students in yeshivot – a lenience that angered many Israelis. But the law allowing the exemption expired in 2012, and the state has been working to pass a new one that meets the demands of a court ruling. The present situation is that Israel’s minister of defence has granted exemptions to all incoming 18-year-old religious students, but there is no law in place to support government policy.

In ordering the Charedi draft law to be re-worked, the Supreme Court was responding to a petition by Hiddush, an organization that works toward “freedom and religious equality,” to stop the payments until a new law is passed.

“I was surprised and pleased at the court’s decision,” Rabbi Uri Regev, president of Hiddush, told this reporter. “Until now, the Supreme Court has been very patient with the government. But they got to the point where they feel the government has gone too far.”

The issue of drafting the ultra-Orthodox is one of the most sensitive in Israeli society. There have been growing social tensions between the secular middle-class majority who serve in the army, while many are unable to make ends meet, and the ultra-Orthodox, most of whom do not serve in the army and do not work, living on government subsidies. Many Charedi say they will refuse to serve in the army, no matter what the law.

“This is part of the inevitable clash between the rule of law and those who feel that theocracy and Torah are the supreme law and that anything that interferes with that is illegitimate,” Regev said.

Ultra-Orthodox rabbis reacted angrily to the court’s decision. Knesset member Israel Eichler of the United Torah Judaism party said the Supreme Court judges were “working in the service of terrorist Reform [liberal Jewish] organizations, which seek to create an atmosphere of bloody civil war.”

Charedi rabbis have opposed army service for several reasons, including fears that the young men could be exposed to non-religious influences, that the men would have inappropriate contact with female soldiers and that the army food does not adhere to their strict standards of Jewish dietary laws. Beyond that, many rabbis say that studying Jewish texts contributes more to the security of the state of Israel than would their army service.

The current proposal applies only to men. Charedi women are often married, or even mothers, by age 18 or 19, and the rabbis would not allow women to serve in places where they would come into contact with men who are not from their family. The laws of modesty followed by the Charedi make it inappropriate for a Charedi woman to do army service.

One of the central issues of the last Israeli election was “sharing the burden” of army service and taxes. Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid, who swept into office with 19 seats in the 120-seat parliament, made this a linchpin of his campaign.

The draft exemption dates back to 1948, when Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, gave an exemption to 400 full-time religious scholars. It came after many of the Jewish centres of learning in Europe were wiped out during the Holocaust. But that number has ballooned today to an estimated 60,000 men receiving exemptions.

Meanwhile, in recent years, a growing percentage of ultra-Orthodox is being drafted and is serving in the military. There are currently 3,500 ultra-Orthodox in the military, according to the army spokesman’s office. An estimated 14 percent of ultra-Orthodox men are now drafted, up from seven percent 10 years ago, many in special units the army created for Charedi soldiers. Some are drafted into combat units, others to technical units. Many of those who serve then enter the labor market in similar fields. Some in Israel say that getting the ultra-Orthodox to work is more important than getting them to serve in the army.

“There are great changes happening within the ultra-Orthodox community itself,” said Doron Cohen, a scholar at the Israel Democracy Institute and a former director-general of the Israeli Finance Ministry. “If you fight against these processes, you will just delay them. It is not about what is right, but what is effective.”

He said that, according to predictions, by the year 2059, the percentage of ultra-Orthodox in Israel will grow from the current 10 percent to 25 percent. Already, more than one-quarter of all Jewish first-graders in Israel study in ultra-Orthodox schools.

“Imagine what will happen if 25 percent of a country does not work – what effect it will have on poverty, inequality and the overall GDP,” Cohen said. “It will lead to a huge crisis of productivity.”

Today, some 45 percent of ultra-Orthodox men work at least part-time, while almost two-thirds of Charedi women are part of the labor market. Cohen said that, in the beginning of the state of Israel, most ultra-Orthodox did work. The second generation, however, moved more towards full-time study, even if it meant poverty. Many in the current generation want to join the workforce and Cohen feels that Israel should make every effort to help them.

Cohen believes that the majority of the Israeli public wants to see more ultra-Orthodox drafted, but he thinks that it will come as a natural progression from being part of the workforce. “When people start work and are more involved in society, they will also want to serve in the army,” he said. “We shouldn’t try to rush it. If it takes five years instead of three years to get more ultra-Orthodox in the army, that is not a terrible thing.”

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