Opinion | Poisonous Rhetoric, Unjust Entitlement

What haven’t Haredi opposers of the draft called those of us who very reasonably want them to do their share to protect our lives and their own? Recent epithets include “haters of Torah,” “desecrators of the sacred,” “enforcers of apostasy.”

And let us be clear. We are not talking here about the draft of currently enrolled yeshiva students but of those in the ultra-Orthodox world who, having left the protection of the yeshiva, are now receiving draft notices. Yeshiva students have not even been drafted. Yet.

In this light, the often-sickening rhetoric coming from known leaders in the ultra-Orthodox world—respected rabbis and rebbes, heads of important institutions—borders on the pathological. Rabbi Dov Lando, the spiritual leader of the Haredi political party Degel HaTorah, celebrated the release of draft dodgers from military prison while claiming Haredim are “in exile among Jews,” while Member of Knesset (MK) Yitzhak Goldknopf, leader of the Haredi parties Agudat Yisrael and United Torah Judaism, compared sanctions against Haredi draft dodgers to the Nazi “yellow star.”

This reference infuriated Knesset MK Yair Lapid, who responded: “My father wore a yellow star in the Budapest ghetto simply because there was no Jewish army to protect his life…What you said…is the dream of every antisemite—both the debasement of the victims of the Holocaust and a show of contempt for the IDF and its fighters.” Orthodox Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich joined in: “There is no place in our coalition for people who are disconnected and insensitive, who repeatedly harm the people of Israel, IDF soldiers and Torah scholars.”

This is not the first time Haredim have accused other Jews of antisemitism to protest the imagined loss of their entitlements. In 2018, after Haredim in Beit Shemesh attacked a little girl on her way to a National Religious school and were arrested, they held a demonstration where their children were dressed in striped Holocaust garb to symbolize being targeted by Israeli “antisemitism.”

If this has been going on so long, and there seems to be no amicable compromise in sight, why, you might ask, should we care? Why not just impose sanctions, make arrests and let the chips fall where they may?

I will answer that by telling the following story. Two years ago, my Paris-born-and-raised granddaughter Ariella (her mother did National Service in a Jewish school in Toulouse and married a religious Jewish Parisian) made aliyah with her French husband. Both of them are Haredim. But they are French Haredim, deeply religious and deeply Zionist, who proudly wore Jewish clothing and symbols in France even though it marked them as targets in a bitterly antisemitic country, and who, in making aliyah, left behind their families and their language.

My granddaughter has two babies now and is not eligible for the Israeli draft. Her husband is not yet an Israeli citizen. When drafted, he will serve. Yet wherever she goes in Israel, her hair covering, long sleeves and modest skirt mark her out for Israelis as belonging to the Haredi world.

Because of the ugliness engendered by the behavior of these Haredi leaders—whose salaries and institutions exist only because of charitable donations and government subsidies—my lovely granddaughter often faces open hostility from strangers in the street and on buses. Even if Haredim were forcibly drafted, the rhetoric of its leadership in a country built to facilitate the ingathering of exiles, as a haven to Jews worldwide, will continue to destroy our country’s very foundations.

What is the solution? Well, perhaps replacing these Haredi leaders with people like Rabbi Asher Weiss—one of the most respected contemporary halachic authorities in Israel—who has said serving in the IDF, which saves lives, is a mitzvah and a society at war cannot morally justify total non-participation by an entire sector. Failing that, perhaps another way to get rid of the fanatics is to hit them in the only place they seem to show any real sensitivity—their wallets.

MK Naftali Bennett has suggested taking 25 billion shekels from the budget earmarked for Haredim and transferring it instead to reservists and veterans to pay for free daycare up to age three, after-school and summer programs and subsidized utilities and municipal taxes.

A similar, welcome movement is afoot in the diaspora. As reported by Nira Dayanim in eJewishPhilanthropy, at least 100 Haredi donors and lay leaders in the United States have pledged to withdraw financial support from Israeli yeshivot and other religious institutions that publicly denigrate the IDF. Calling itself “Coalition for Talmud Torah and Security,” its supporters explain their position clearly: “We cannot in good conscience support institutions whose public posture undermines those charged with defending Jewish life. Accordingly, we will only provide financial support to Torah institutions that do not publicly speak against, protest or delegitimize the IDF while they bear the burden of defending Jewish lives.”

Let us hope these initiatives take hold and desiccate the finances of those who would destroy the country while holding on to the coattails of the Torah. Let us hope it results in better Haredi leadership, ending the poisonous rhetoric.

Naomi Ragen is a novelist and playwright living in Zichron Yakov, Israel.