MK (Labor) Omer Bar-Lev expressed his disapproval over Finance Minister (Yesh Atid) Yair Lapid’s proposed state budget vis-à-vis the chareidi community. “Lapid has decided to use force, to go head-to-head with the chareidim and while he may be correct, it is unwise.”
Bar-Lev feels “the chareidim have been shoved into a bunker” and as a result, “They will fight with all their might as was seen at the protest”. Bar-Lev refers to the protest at the Jerusalem Induction Center organized last week by the Eida Chareidis. According to the official police estimate, 40,000 people took part in that protest.
Bar-Lev feels that Lapid’s actions and words have had an adverse effect due to his “arrogance in Knesset”, explaining that instead of encouraging more chareidim to enter the IDF or national service, and ultimately the workforce, they are forced into the bunker and will fight back with all their might.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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2 Responses
1. If getting Hareidim to enter the “workplace” (meaning the “on the books economy” rather than the “grey” hareidi economy), all they have to do is abolish conscription all together (as most western countries have done) or decide that after several years in yeshiva a student can leave the yeshiva and take an “on the books” job without getting drafted. The cause of hareidi “unemployment” is that it is illegal for anyone to take a job unless they serve in the army.
2. A demonstration of 40,000 in Israel, especially as that was limited to males, is the equivalent of a “two million man march” in the United States. This is a huge number. Open opposition to the state by that many people could rise to being an existential threat. Importantly, it was called by the Eidah Hareidis – not the “establishment” hareidi parties.
3. It pays for Labor to start saying nice things about the Hareidim and to criticize Lapid. When it comes to economics, Labor and the Hareidim are very close (pro-welfare, not overly concerned with fiscal responsibility — like European socialists or American Democrats, and like Greeks were until they went broke). If the hareidi parties support Labor, it will become possible for Labor to be in striking distance of a majority in the kenesset for the first time in a generation.
4. Expect to hear some leftists talking about alternatives to conscription that would facilitate a Labor-Hareidi alliance (e.g. a professional army, allow conscientious objection, etc.).
Re Commenter No. 1: Your first point, that the Hareidi practice of working “off the books” would end if conscription is ended overlooks some important facts:
a. Most Western nations have successfully ended conscription, but they have much larger populations to draw on, and they are not surrounded by neighbors sworn to destroy them. Israel is relatively tiny, and its neighbors are not neighborly.
b. I do not understand how Hareidim can be so pious about Torah and so oblivious to the secular state that supports and protects them, and how the Hareidim think they can cheat on social welfare and taxes. “Off the books” is a eupemism for criminal behavior – tax evasion and cheating on receiving public support. Torah requires us to respect secular authority unless the secular authority requires us to breach halachah. There is nothing that the Israeli government does that justifies Hareidi cheating on taxes and welfare.
As to your second point, that the Hareidim deserve respect because they mustered a huge march: well, I don’t think that is how any group earns respect when it lives “off the books” and also off the state. And as for “Million Man Marches” in the US, is that really the comparison you want to apply to Hareidim?
As for your third point, you suggest that Labor party and other left-leaning parties, as well as US Democrats (who are not, properly, considered left-leaning), are not overly concerned with fiscal responsibility: that is patently wrong. Socialists need a financially sound state to pay the benefits it supports. Moreover, in the US, fiscal irresponsibility is as strong on the right – maybe stronger – than it is on the left. Consider George W. 2-wars-no-new-taxes Bush, for starters. Consider the “deficits-don’t-matter declarations of Dick Cheney and Ronald Reagan.