Toi: I’ll take your word for it, as you are there. I just know what I see from those who I know that live there.
Jerusalem reader: If you “cannot make ends meet” and are borrowing without being able to pay back, then yes, you should ask a Shailah. I’m not telling you to leave EY (Chas V’Shalom), but rather that it is a question.
(The non-frum person who borrows and doesn’t pay probably doesn’t care about Halacha, and is willing to not pay (just like he is willing to eat non-Kosher)).
In particular, the idea that the answer is for us to make yeridah rather than that something in the Israeli socialist economy needs to change is offensive.
In this you, I, Lapid & Bibi all agree. Those who argue are R. Gafni, Shelly Yachimovich & Zahava Gal-On. But that would mean lower taxes and no payouts to Charaidim (and US style health insurance with no medicare/medicaid), which is not what they (or even I to a certain extent) claim to want. If they do want that, they (being you) should push to join the government with that understanding. I actually believe it would go over well.