Reply To: Hashkafic views on taking money from the medinah

smerel: There are several differences. First, programs that benefit American hareidim are programs that benefit all Americans (but it happens that many hareidim qualify), whereas many of the Zionist programs are targetted towards hareidim (e.g. the government doesn’t offer to fund all relgious institutions, including Muslim and Christians ones, only Jewish ones). This leads to a second factor, the American government isn’t offering money in order to induce Chareidim to support government policies, and it doesn’t turn around and point to Chareidim recipients and say “see, the Chareidim support the American government”. The zionists use Chareidim acceptance of money as a “hecksher” to argue that all of zionism (including many things we aren’t allowed to discuss on YWN) are acceptable to the Torah world.