shein – this is the basic hashkafic argument. Halacha says quite a bit about this issue but you have to be intellectually honest to understand that. The chareidi movement has been given a tremendous amount but have not kept their part of the deal. There’s just so long that you can continue to take money before the system collapses under its own weight!
A case in point – the city where we live has been growing in the number of chareidi families tremendously over the years. Way too many of those families get a 90% discount on their arnona (property taxes). It’s now come to the point that there’s simply not enough money coming in from taxes to cover expenses. So, the municipality keeps refusing to pay for necessities. Instead of telling the chareidim that we simply can’t afford this anymore -They have recently raised our taxes in a most unscrupulous way – they reassessed everyone’s taxes by charging for communal spaces. A quote from the chareidi newspaper: “almost 70% of homeowners” had their assessments raised by including “areas such as elevator piers, stairwells, pergolas and even the area where the trash bins are situated as taxable property.” This was done because the city was asking the discount to be lowered from 90% to 70%. That means they were asking the chareidim to pay the smallest amount more in order to cover the expenses THAT THEY BENEFIT FROM EVERY DAY! They’re taxing us on the place where the dumpsters are in order to avoid charging the chareidim their fare share!!!!! The absolute worst of it – the chareidi paper is proud of it and said that this reassessment more than makes up for the difference.
This is the reason that so many people in Israel (both religious and not-yet-religious) are so fed up with the chareidi mentality. The chareidi movement (I’m careful to recognize that not every chareidi person is this way but the leadership is) has chosen to be unreasonable. They think of themselves and their money instead of thinking of what’s good for the Jewish people. Yes, this is the reason that people say it’s time to get an education and work. And I don’t mean just work a underpaying job or off-the-books job that keeps you under the poverty level and therefore exempt from income taxes.