Fighting for Survival: the Plight of the Haredim

Peter Wierenga, the Provost of my Alma Mater, Gutenberg College, wrote an article last month entitled, "Losing Sight of the Essentials", which addresses the recent violence on the part of Haredi communities in Israel toward Haredi soldiers. I enjoyed the article and was pleased to see the issue was being raised in my home community, as this has been one of the biggest topics in the news and in conversation since my wife and I arrived in Israel. In the three short months we have lived here, at least three incidents of mob violence towards young Haredi soldiers have occurred in Mea She'arim, a religious neighborhood in Jerusalem. Despite the attention these incidents have received in the press, however, I believe the problem is far more complicated than many publications acknowledge (including the Wall Street Journal article "Israel's Ultra-Orthodox Soldiers Under Fire" which Wierenga uses as the source text for his article). I would like to take the opportunity to join the conversation and point out a couple of subtle complexities to the situation which I feel have been overlooked in mainstream media.

I often walk through Mea She'arim on Saturday mornings. I savor these peaceful streets. In Jerusalem, few people drive on Shabbat. But in Mea She'arim, nobody drives on Shabbat. The police place road blockades at the entrances to the neighborhood on Friday afternoon, not so much to preserve the sanctity of the neighborhood as to prevent ignorant travelers from unwittingly triggering a stone-throwing Olympics. Oftentimes the residents of the neighborhood also assist in the barricading, dragging branches or tipping dumpsters into the streets, just as an added precaution. But beyond these ominous barriers, lies something truly beautiful and unique. Broad city streets, usually bustling with taxis and tour buses, now filled only with families quietly walking to Synagogue. The men wear their prayer shawls over their shoulders and engage in quiet conversation, and "Shabbat Shalom" to passersby. There are no radios sounding from the apartments overhead, no telephones ringing, no store clerks barking, and no television adverts in storefront windows. Here in the heart of a city as densely populated as Seattle, WA, the streets are as quiet and peaceful as a pastoral village in 19th century Poland. The Sabbath rest.

In Israel, the Haredim have long enjoyed a somewhat privileged status. It was important to the founders of the Jewish state that it preserved a religious core. For this reason, early bills offered the then negligible population of ultra-Orthodox Jews numerous state-supported benefits, most significantly: living stipends in exchange for full-time Torah study, and exemption from mandatory military enlistment. Perhaps more important than the laws themselves, however, was what they symbolized: the State of Israel valued and supported the preservation of Haredi religious life and tradition.

A lot has changed in the 65 years since the establishment of the State of Israel. Haredi population has grown immensely and become increasingly cloistered in religious communities. The secular world has largely grown to view the ultra-Orthodox population as a burden. Now with weakened representation in the government, many lawmakers are working hard to erode the "privileged status" of the Haredim. Most significantly, a recently drafted bill is working its way through Israel's legislative structures. If passed, the bill would end the military draft exemption for the Ultra-Orthodox.

Although the Peri Bill has often been mentioned in connexion to the recent plight of Haredi soldiers, it is at least downplayed by most media outlets, as in the case of the abovementioned Wall Street Journal article. Removed from this context, the ultra-Orthodox hostility appears to stem from some misdirected sense of Godly Justice. That is indeed how most media coverage characterizes the issue. Just like Christians burn Harry Potter books to make some moot self-affirming cultural statement about views on witchcraft in children's literature, Haredim keep beating up Soldiers to make a statement: Haredi men should not expose themselves to secularism by joining the army. Wierenga says:

The Haredim don’t seem to be arguing that the soldiers are behaving unrighteously in fulfilling their soldierly responsibilities but rather that they have involved themselves in the secular culture as opposed to standing apart from it. That is where the religious cultural issues come into play. For the Haredim, complete separation from the secular Israeli society is so important that they will beat those soldiers who have engaged with that secular society. 

Although I do think that the Haredim object to fulfilling ones "soldierly responsibilities" in principle (many ultra-Orthodox Rabbis view the secular state as an evil institution, and posters in Mea She'arim have become increasingly propogandistic in their criticism of Netanyahu), that is not, I would contend, the central issue at hand. It is important here to note that there have been a small number of Haredi youth enlisted in the army for some time. While Haredi society has not been exactly enthusiastic about that fact, they have remained more or less silent on the issue—until now. What has changed? Why have there been three historically unprecedented attacks in the past month?

The answer lies in the developing political climate in Israel, in the rapidly growing tension between the secular state and the Religious population, and specifically in the drafting of the Peri Bill. What we are seeing in Mea She'arim is essentially rooted in a "strike" mentality. More than one trolly worker was lynched by the union mob of Philadelphia. How many Tories were beaten for nothing more than drinking British tea during the American Revolution? In the eyes of the Haredim, every one of their own who enlists undermines their fight to preserve their traditions and way of life as they have known them.

Although I do not necessarily agree with Haredi tactics, I am sympathetic to their cause. The Ultra-Orthodox in Israel do face an existential threat. On the eve of Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of Atonement, Yair Lapid, Israel's Finance Minister and outspoken adversary of the Haredi influence in government stated in a facebook post:

Lord, I have something to ask forgiveness for, but not for mistakes we [in Yesh Atid] made, but for what we have not yet changed [...] As long as there is no civil marriage and public transportation on Shabbat because of people who think they speak in your name, we have something to change. As long as we have not completed the historic process of drafting haredim and enabling them to enter the workforce, we have something to change.

This post received over 6,000 likes. And see, the issue of the Haredi draft is lumped together with civil marriage and public transportation on Shabbat. The sole uniting feature of all these issues is that they oppose the values of the religious community in Israel. There is enormous momentum within Israel to eradicate all traces of religiosity from the public sector, and it remains to be seen, I would argue, whether there will be a place for the Haredi population in the Israel of the future.

In an excellent article called Their Revolutions and Ours, Daniel Gordis, Senior Vice President of Shalem College in Jerusalem, contrasts the relatively non-violent founding of the Jewish state with the Arab Spring revolutions now taking place in surrounding countries as well as the European revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. It is easier to rally around a common enemy than to share a common vision for what will replace the existing government once it is toppled. For this reason, revolutions often disintegrate into violent infighting.

 In this sense, the Zionist revolution most closely resembles the American Revolution, which also lacked significant infighting following the Declaration of Independence in 1776. As Daniel Gordis points out, however, the struggle for America did not end in 1776. There was still a sharp division in the Union — two disparate visions for the country. This division grew, and became sharper for 80 years, culminating in the Civil War. "We Israelis, too," Gordis says, "more than half a century into our own independence, have yet to resolve the great unaddressed question our Founders chose to overlook in 1948. We, too, are witness to the first rounds of violence, and we, too, know that it could well get much worse."