(Photo Credit: The Cradle)
The widening schism between Israel’s secular and ultra-Orthodox communities impacts not only the state’s military and economic wellbeing, but poses an existential threat to the stability of the entire Zionist project.
Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, known as the Haredim, is the fastest-growing segment of the country’s population. This demographic shift is occurring amid escalating tensions between secular right-wing and religious-nationalist factions in Israel, raising concerns about the stability of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist coalition – particularly over contentious issues like Haredi military conscription.
Projected to constitute approximately 16 percent of the occupation state’s population by 2030, the Haredim’s burgeoning numbers have triggered a broader societal debate about Israel’s future direction. This includes the challenge of reconciling today’s Jewish ethno-religious identity politics with the original Israeli aspirations for a modern “liberal-democratic” state framework.
In 2018, the Israeli Knesset passed the controversial ’Nation-State’ law, which officially declared that only its Jewish citizens have the right to self-determination. This law was later cited by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International in their reports designating Israel as an apartheid regime.
In order to maintain the idea of a state built on Jewish supremacy, it has to be taken into consideration that Haredi Jews have a birth rate of 6.4, compared to the Jewish Israeli average of 2.5. This makes the ultra-Orthodox community an invaluable asset for Israelis seeking to maintain a demographic balance in which Jewish Israelis remain a clear majority – outside of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Economic and military challenges
In other respects, however, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community presents a number of liabilities for the state, including a significant drain on Israeli resources.
For example, the Haredim population growth has created housing crises for their communities. According to research published by Israel’s Kohelet Policy Forum, an unemployed Haredi father receives an average of four times the amount of government subsidies than a non-Haredi father.
The community’s unemployment rate is double the national average, with only 14 percent of Haredi students receiving a high-school certificate, compared to 83 percent in state and state-religious schools.
But today, arguably the most contentious aspect of the relationship between ultra-Orthodox Jews and the Israeli state is the former’s longstanding exemption from mandatory military service.
In the early years of the occupation state’s history, only a few hundred Yeshiva (Jewish religious school) students were granted this exemption.
However, in 1977, Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin extended the exemption to include the entire Haredi community, a move that has persistently divided public opinion, particularly as all other Jewish Israeli citizens are required to serve in the military.
The Haredim’s lack of contribution to the national economy and military, coupled with their extraordinary financial entitlements from the state’s coffers, has made them the “most hated people in Israel.”
Political influence and legal reforms
Despite the public’s animosity, the ultra-Orthodox are extremely important to Israel’s illegal settlement program and now occupy powerful, ‘kingmaker’ positions in both national and local government. According to the Israel Policy Forum, roughly one-third of all West Bank settlers are Haredi, with a similar number distributed throughout occupied east Jerusalem.
The illustrate the growing political clout of this community, the Haredi political faction, Shas, secured 11 seats in Israel’s Knesset in the 2022 national elections, becoming the third largest component of the government’s ruling coalition. Public unease was further exacerbated by the ultra-Orthodox parties’ success in Jerusalem’s City Council elections.
It was no surprise, then, that upon Netanyahu’s election victory, he launched a campaign of controversial legal reforms that critics charged would transform Israel’s secular model of governance into a theocratic one.
The Haredim’s mark on Israeli society can no longer be overlooked. The country’s fastest-growing population is now seeded throughout local and national governments, and thanks to Netanyahu’s uber-fragile coalition structure, it is today able to impact Israel’s every social, political, and military decision.
Conscription or exodus
But these matters are now coming to a head. In late March, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered that ultra-Orthodox Jews be provided government subsidies for religious studies and conscripted into the army.
The ruling came down after Netanyahu delayed a Knesset vote on a bill to renew the extension exempting ultra-Orthodox Jews from military conscription. Earlier, in March, Israel’s Chief Sephardic Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef had threatened that the Haredim would leave Israel altogether if forced into military service.
The Supreme Court order caused an uproar in the community, with Haredi members vowing to disregard the law and will “never serve in the army.”
Israeli military service has long been discouraged within the Haredim, to the point where its members have and can be de facto excommunicated and shunned by even their own families. In fact, Haredi Jews who have decided to break social norms and join the army have a specific combat battalion set up for them in the West Bank called Netzah Yehuda…
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https://thecradle.co/articles/an-ultra-orthodox-ultimatum-and-the-future-of-the-jewish-state
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