Thank you for the clarification. You are entitled to your opinion.
In one of the other threads, A600KiloBear and I were discussing Hareidi vs Modern Orthodox hashkafot. He predicted, IIRC, that “my children would be Hareidi”. I assume that he meant because of demographic trends in Israel (and in the US).
One major difference in the MO versus the Hareidi hashkafot is that of mutual tolerance. As you posted (if I may paraphrase) “all Torah Jewry” opposes Zionism. This implies that, in your opinion, a Zionist cannot be a Torah Jew.
One reason for the demographic shift from Modern Orthodoxy/Mizrachi Judaism to Hareidi Judaism is educational. Over the years, OM schools have been employing Hareidi teachers. This was done for 2 reasons–the lack of emphasis on teaching in the MO sector we simply didn’t have enough people who wanted to go into those fields; and the philosophy of “what can it hurt? We are all Torah Jews here”. We see the result in the demographic shift.
Well, we were slow to see it, but it is sinking in. There are now major changes in the educational hashkafa of the Mamlachti Dati movement in Israel, and one can hope to see it in the MO folks in the US as well. First of all, huge numbers of young mamlachti-dati people are going into education, at high school, middle school, and elementary school levels. They now see this as of paramount importance, which of course it is. Second, many paerents of children are serving notice to the mamlachti-dati school system that we do not want Hareidi teachers in our schools. This si because we believe that the attitudes that they teach are, in many cases, exactly those expressed by Mezonos Maven–that a Torah is incompatible with Zionism/Modern Orthodoxy.
Of course, the Hareidim consider this unfair, but they can hardly complain since they have never exactly welcomed teachers of any hashkafa other than their own into their schools.
So what is the net result? One of them is much less employment for Hareidi women. Teaching is one of the primary occupations permitted them, and the Mamalachti Dati schools were a major source of employment to them. This is now drying up. Will this increase the poverty in the hareidi sector? Sure–and I don’t think that that is a good thing. But I do not wish people from that sector teaching my children.
Israeli religious schools also employ Rabbanim, and the story above goes for them as well. I do not want Hareidi Rabbanim coming to give shiurim at my childrens’ schools–and I am far from alone in that opinion. Many of us now understand why our population is shrinking and the Hareidi population is growing–and it is not only birth rates.
I am beginning to hear similar talk from my friends and relatives in the MO communities in the US. And since those schools are private, the shift to exclusively MO teachers should be even easier.
To those who ask if we are afraid of exposure to Hareidi ideas, I reply that we are adopting the successful Hareidi strategy of emphasizing our own hashkafa. Whether or not it will influence demographics remains to be seen.
As far as religious values, I believe that the mamlachti/dati/Mizrachi/Modern Orthodox hashkafa is far better than that of the Hareidi one (else I would not be what I am) so we have nothing to lose by this.
As far as economics goes, the mamlachti/dati sector of society is not affected, except that more of our own are employed in the schools. Not a bad thing at all.
And as far as the Hqareidi sector goes, well, their own attitudes have brought this about. Why would we send our children to schools that employ teachers who teach that we are not Torah Jews?