“In another thread — i wondered aloud which was the better (or worse) type of OTD (no longer orthodox). Was it what we seem to see more in the yeshiva community — with drugs, alcohol — but less than what we see in the MO community where kids just becoming non-religious professionals?”
That’s actually a very interesting question, although I will say I don’t know what it has to do with this thread. You could make the point that the Yeshivish OTD people you’re describing are worse in that they actively make a chillul hashem to continuing to look frum while being genuinely bad people (I’m assuming you’re referring to the “one their way off the derech” folks). In addition, it seems like when Charedim do go fully off the derech, they end up being much more anti-religion than their MO counterparts.
I’m not ready to say that these trends aren’t just a function of location, however. If you go OTD in Brooklyn, you’re assimilating into the urban culture around you. If you go OTD in Westchester, you’re assimilating into that culture.
“But nonetheless, this canard that there is a majority out to destroy Torah in israel is just false. ”
I mean, this is obviously the point where we flat out disagree. I would say, if you want to see it from our standpoint, consider this: by your admission the majority of Israelis are still secular, the make-up of the knesset is overwhelmingly secular and gives more representation to Muslim and anti-religious parties than it does to Jewish parties. With this being said, how is it false that the majority is secularist? The numbers just don’t seem the agree with you. You can point to the instances when the state laxed up and became more religion-friendly, but we will just counter that that never would have happened without unwavering, Charedi resistance. Government-wise, Israel has always exercised its lack of freedom of speech at the expense of Jews to protect Muslims (eg. the “hate wedding”). Muslims can say much worse about the Jews and serve in the knesset and be “heroic activists.” Most extreme Zionists like Kahanists agree with these issues, but I will go farther to say that that is not a “Jewish State.” If anything, that’s an Islamic state that happens to be run by secular Jews. Why would we have a chiyuv to support and fight for that?