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The secular Zionist government will stop pressuring the Chareidim to enter the draft if an alternative is offered that allows Chareidim to work. Discuss.
Both sides are to blame, actually. The government knows that the army does not need or want chareidi soldiers and is only pushing this agenda in order to stomp on the chareidim. on the other hand, the chareidim are not interested in a compromise even if it were to benefit their communities and dig them out of poverty. i am not sure which side is reacting to the unreasonableness of the other.
They could have offered that alternative, but chose to be antagonistic instead.
Had there not been a need for a p’tur from the army (which is no place for a Jewish boy), I think the situation in EY would be much as it is today in Lakewood, where eventually, the vast majority do find employment, and as the economic situation demands, that includes secular education (although usually vocationally oriented, and undertaken well after marriage).
For political gain (and that’s being generous), Lapid decided to force charedim into the army. If he wanted them to join the work force, he could have exempted them from military service.
There was also a bill to ban discrimination against charedim in the work force, which didn’t pass. I think that says a lot.
Not really. The primary goal of the policy is to cause the hareidim to switch from voting for Degel ha-Torah, Agudath Israel or Shas, and to become supporters of “normal” parties such as Likud or Bayit Yehudi. Israel has a pending demographic crisis since the secular Jews don’t like to have kids, and the frum ones do. For zionism to survive, they have to “break” the hareidi community. Otherwise by the late 21st century, Israel will be a Jewish state (imagine Aryeh Deri as Prime Minister, and you see what the hilonim have to fear).
The army doesn’t need thousands of unhappy jobniks. If soldiers to fight the Arabs were an issue, the last thing they would do is draft yeshiva students from non-zionist yeshivos. As it is, conscription will reduce the number of combat soldiers.
If they wanted hareidim to join the “workplace” (meaning the mainstream economy), they would repeal the laws the restrict employment opportunities for those who don’t serve in the army, and enact laws to outlaw religious discrimination.
It isn’t the economics of the hareidi community, or the defense of the country, that is at the heart of the issue. It is the existence of the hareidi community.
There are plenty of possible compromises that we in the Coffee Room could come up with; unfortunately neither side in Eretz Yisrael seems much interested in compromising. 🙁
I’m confused. Is the new rule in Israel (and the cause of the rally) about conscripting Yeshiva students or is it about Chareidim joining the army? Chareidim do not all learn Torah all day. What percentage of Chassidim are torasam umnasam?
“The secular Zionist government will stop pressuring the Chareidim to enter the draft if an alternative is offered that allows Chareidim to work.”
The premise of the question is wrong, or at least misleading. The current version of the law allows all charedim over the age of 22 to enter the workforce despite not having served in the IDF, and with no penalty. So the law will have the effect of allowing a large proportion of the charedi population to immediately join the workforce with no bureaucratic barriers.
charliehall: The hareidi community insists on staying as frum as they have been for millenia, and their opponents insists on the hareidim becoming “normal” (stop being hareidi). There really isn’t room for compromise.
yytz: That’s only half true. Many jobs in Israel require military service even if that isn’t a reasonable requirement for the job (it’s a vehicle for discrimination against both hareidim and Arabs – in the US it would be illegal to have an irrelevant job requirement insert for reason of discriminating). Also, most secular Israelis don’t like hareidim, and Israeli law doesn’t prohibit discrimination on the basis of religion, nor does it require employers to make a reasonable accomdadation of religious practices (the current Kenesset consider such a law and voted it down overwhelmingly).
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