In the past several weeks, Israel has seen increasing demonstrations, often with violence, of Haredi mobs who protest against the so-called Draft Evasion Bill which have resulted in attacks at police stations, the private homes of police and army commanders and the private residence of a Supreme Court judge, whose home a seriously damaged.
The police mostly claims they “do not have the resources” to handle these serious threats, but maybe they are simply trying to not get involved. And particularly after a date for the Israeli elections was established and the current polls show that it is uncertain if Prime Minister Netanyahu will (again) obtain a majority and keep his majority in the Knesset and with that his job as Prime Minister, the Ultra-orthodox parties, who hold a crucial part of their votes in the current coalition, have become extremely coercive.
And while it all started with the Draft Evasion Bill, the moment the Haredim realized they have Netanyahu in their hands, and his political future depends mostly on them, they have become more and more demanding, with the “Basic Law of Tora Study”, the appointments of hundreds of so-called Kashrut personnel (a demand of Aryeh Deri), the demand to change the conscription law so that draft evaders can no longer be arrested (meaning only Haredi draft evaders), the continuation of subsidies regarding housing, kindergartens and others.
All this while the Army, after almost three years of war, is screaming for more warriors, with a lack of thousands of soldiers in combat functions.
So why is this happening? Of course there are a number of reasons why this is happening now but the main reasons are two: Netanyahu wants at all cost to remain in power after the elections and the Haredim smell would they like most: Money.
While the Prime Minister will go as far as destroying all that has been built in more than 70 years and thereby making Israel into a dictatorship, the Haredim are taking the opportunity to extract as much as they can from Netanyahu’s “problems” and get what they are really after: the big money.
Already the government (which means Netanyahu) has approved hundreds of millions to the Haredim and their associates, and they are confident they will be able to extort many millions more before this is over.
But the only positive outcome of this will hopefully be that the Israeli population will (finally) realize that their “Jewish” state is being destroyed by a bunch of hooligans aiming to turn this country into a “Halachic” state where they will control everything, including, of course, the money.
But Jewish roots go deep and standing up as a so-called “anti-Semite” is a difficult and painful decision, even if of course they will only called that by Jewish fanatics.
It is high time that the Israeli man in the street makes decisions about what Israel will be like in the future. Will it be a Jewish State if it is not a Halachic State? Today more than half of Haredi men do not work and provide for their family. And even if a larger number of Haredi women do work, their income is in most cases not enough to support the family. As a result, the children are placed in childcare centers in often extremely bad conditions, they are later placed in Torah “study centers” where conditions are also problematic, with as a result that many of these youngsters do not spend their time studying Torah but prefer spending their time elsewhere. Thus, many of them do not get an education that will prepare them for life in the real world. And this means they will need some kind of support from the outside, which means the Israeli government. In comparison, in New York City, with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, all Jews, Haredim and secular, work to earn a living, which is the right thing to do since the City of New York will not hand out money just like that. It was acceptable that in 1947 Ben Gurion let himself be forced to allow Haredim to study Torah with only a small number of Jews interested and willing to do so (even though already then, the independence of the State was only approved after the blackmail of the Haredim threatened to prevent it).
It is high time that the majority of the Israeli people make the hard decisions and will stop the massive theft the Haredim have been doing for years. Let Israelis decide how to live, even if it means the State will become “less Jewish”.
In a Jewish State, you should be allowed to be yourself, be it a secular Jew or an ultra-Orthodox religious Jew, but this also means that the rules that have been established will need to be kept, and being ultra-orthodox does not allow you to ignore these, including serving in the Army, which protects all, Haredim and secular alike.
I hope you found this article interesting and I welcome any comments you may have.
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