What really has many in the modern State of Israel concerned is the continued growth of the chareidi tzibur. In fact, the number of students in chareidi schools has grown by 90% over the past 15 years as compared to an 11% increase in the state schools.
Research by the Chareidi Institute for Policy Studies publicized by Israel Radio’s Reshet Bet on Monday I Iyar states the number of chareidi children in kindergartens and elementary schools today represents 30% of all the Jewish students in Israel. In Jerusalem, these students represent two-thirds of all the Jewish students in the city as the number of students enrolled in state public schools in the capital is on a steady decline.
The study was conducted by Dr. Neri Horowitz, who told Reshet Bet the data really requires a change of thinking in planning and municipal government vis-à-vis chareidi education.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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9 Responses
Burich Hashem let it continue …
1. The whole idea of zionism was to create a Jewish homeland free from the yoke of Torah. To the Israelis, this is distressing. It negates the whole reason for the zionist movement.
2. It also should worry the frum community since it appears that sooner rather than later we will actually have to run the government in Eretz Yisrael. From a halachic perspective, being the majority in a country and having to take responsibility for its governance is much more problematic that being a minority striving for autonomy and toleration.
The REAL news!
There are several factors and causes of this. The primary reason, I imagine, is that Chareidim have more children than anyone else. To the best of my knowledge, the Dati Li’umi don’t tend as many children as the Chareidim have, but more than the chilonim. The chilonim, unsurprisingly, have a negative population growth.
Plus add to that the fact that many chilonim have long realized that the state public schools are full of drugs and other such issues. In some areas many chilonim try to get their children into Dati schools.
And possibly the chiloni schools have a higher dropout rate in the lower age bracket.
This is great, soon we will outvote G-dless Zionists and control the entire budget, school system (where Shema will be mandatory), shut down toeiva parades and abolish the draft as all Western countries have done.
This is good news ONLY if ongoing efforts to integrate the Chareidi sector in the overall economy are successful and they adopt their educational and social models to balance torah study and earning a parnassah. Otherwise you will continue to have an upside down pyramid where an increasingly smaller percentage of the population will be called upon to economically support and militarily protect the growing portion of the population on top of the pyramid that makes no contribution (putting aside the metaphysical debate over the value of 24×7 lamdus which is a farce since such a large percentage of the kollel yungerleit are not really shteiging 24×7).
The REAL concern should be the growth of the Arabs tizbur.
How long before our leaders realise that we need to start making some money, building up the economy, and protecting the country’s borders before there aren’t enough others in Israel who will do it for us?
Nowhere in the Torah does it say that it is an ideal for a whole community to sit in full time learning. It’s not even possible.
We need businessmen and we need soldiers.
I’m scared for Israel’s future…
#7 is right, #8, you should not be scared when the Torah prevails and Hellenism loses. #6, I doubt anyone will starve to death if Charedim will be in charge, remember Hatzalah, ZAKA and countless other orgs are run by chareidim perfectly fine, while the post office run by secular Zionists and other govt bureaucracies.