(article written for the last election)
Israeli Society's
Antisemitism Problem
“On the Israeli side, the Jewish population in Palestine,
the yishuv, was 90% secular at the time. And the leadership of the yishuv was
almost totally secular. The military leadership, the political leadership. It
was a very secular society. You get an optical illusion when you look back from
2016 when Israel has become much more religious or a larger part, segment of
its population is religious. But in 1948 the people who counted and actually
the vast majority of the population was of course non-religious. In fact they
were children, or actually the people themselves, who had rebelled against
religion. This is what Zionism was all about, partly, against rebelling against
the old world of their fathers, which was a religious world. They rebelled also
against God. So they didn’t approach the war at all as a religious war, not the
generals, not the politicians, not Ben-Gurion, not Sharet, not Allon, not
Dayan. They were irreligious people, maybe even they were anti-religious, so
the religious people saw them.” (Benny Morris on “A New Look at the 1948
Arab-Israeli War,” Wilson Center, 43:15)
As Benny Morris, one of Israel's top
historians, tells us, the country was founded by rebels against Jewish
tradition. So, one would not be crazy to worry that such people would produce a
society that is hostile to religious people. Listening to former defense
minister Avigdor Lieberman and his cheering section over the past two months,
we see that is exactly the situation.
Israel is a strange place. If a 1st
grader in Chile were to ask why the Israeli authorities razed a Palestinian
school, she'd be pounced upon as a vicious antisemite. The Israeli press would
never let up on her. Israeli politicians from every party would denounce her
from the Knesset floor. She would be barred from ever entering Israel.
However, Mr. Lieberman just spent two
months in a full blast assault on Charedi Jews in Israel that was reminiscent
of you know what. “If the word Haredim were replaced by ‘Jews’ – we would say
that it was an article from Europe,” Shas leader Aryeh Deri noted, adding “The
only thing missing was him saying we have big noses or don’t
bathe.”
It took a Charedi man to say it. The
non-Charedi part of the country has been silent if they haven't been cheering
Lieberman on. No doubt they love quips like these:
"we won’t allow for the whole country to become
Shtreimel wearers”
"the time has come that something be demanded of
them in return for once”
"We are in favor of a Jewish state, we are against a
halachic state."
Lieberman is very concerned about
so-called Charedi power and he wants all of Israeli society to know it. Again
and again, he referenced "Charedi coercion" even as he
single-handedly held up formation of a new government and forced the country
into expensive new elections. A headline in the self-proclaimed fair and
liberal Times of Israel said, "Liberman is right to protest ultra-Orthodox
coercion". Yaakov Katz of the Jerusalem Post wrote, “FOR TOO LONG, this
country has been ruled by a haredi minority.” Charedim don't get a break on any
side within Israeli society. Meanwhile the Charedi parties agreed to
compromise offers. Reportedly, Lieberman issued unprecedented political demands
for political appointments. He claims he took a stand against those rascally
Charedim and their power.
Last I checked, there are no Charedim
on the High Court, nor have there ever been. There has never been a Charedi
Prime Minister. No Charedi President. There are few Charedim in the Prime
Minister's cabinet. Here's the list of the outgoing cabinet positions.
|
Portfolio |
Minister |
Party |
|
|
Minister of Foreign Affairs[14] |
|||
Three of the thirty posts are held by
Shas, one of them the Ministry of Religious Affairs -- that’s 10 percent, not
exactly dominant. Do you see anybody there from those alleged power-brokers of
United Torah Judaism?:No, you do not. I have tell you that you don't see it
because you might imagine that you do. After all, doesn't everyone know the
Chassidic rebbes dominate the country? Do we actually have to examine whether
it's true?
No Charedi has ever led the Bank of
Israel. There are no Charedi billionaires based in Israel. In fact, Charedim
are amongst those with the lowest income in the country. There are no major
Israeli newspapers or television channels that are led by Charedim. If there is
a Charedi in charge of any of Israel's major corporations I can't picture him
or her. Is there one? Are there two? I suppose it's possible. Anything is
possible.
And then there's the military, the
most powerful institution in the country. There has never been a Charedi Chief
of Staff. The leadership of the military generation after generation has quite
clearly not populated by Charedim. Has there ever been a Charedi general or
police chief of a major city? On and on it goes. But somehow, those Charedim
are so powerful that we must all stop them. We must make a stand.
But what about social control?
Lieberman is concerned that the country is headed towards theocracy. Does
a gay-pride parade of 250,000 people take place in a theocratic country? Do 10%
of pregnancies end in abortion in a theocratic country? (I am not condoning
either of these.) One wonders if Lieberman has ever visited Tel-Aviv. The
bathers on those beaches don't appear to be under any theocratic control --
neither do the men and women on the streets of Tel-Aviv. Is is amazing how
Israelis can brag about how different they are from the neighboring Arab states
and at the same time complain about theocracy. Has Lieberman been to Haifa? A
restaurant owner there told me that the city won't allow him to build a Succah.
Yes, there's a control problem in Israel, but it isn't Charedi
control.
There is not another country in the
western world that would tolerate such a barrage of hostility against religious
Jews -- those streimel-wearers -- as what we just saw from Lieberman.
Since 1945, there might not be a country of any kind that would allow it. Only
in the so-called Jewish state is such antisemitism embraced.
Antisemitism you say? Yes,
antisemitism. If being "anti-Israel" makes one antisemitic, then so
does being "anti-Charedi." Charedim are too Jewish for some people,
particularly those who work in the fashion of the founders of the country.
Charedim are reminders of what they were rebelling against. Sure, you can be a
little Jewish, but these loonies take it way too far, no?
One of the big challenges for Charedi
olim is enduring the anti-Charedi sentiments that blast from every pore of
Israeli society. In America, the clerk at the gas-station in Iowa might stare
at your yarmulka for a second. She might even give you a blessing as an
African-American woman did to a friend of mine in Virginia. She said, "I
heard that anyone who blesses you is blessed. So I'm going to bless you."
That's America.
Then there's Israel. Olim come trying
to escape the antisemitism they are told is erupting all over the world (so
they are told) but walk in many cases into a hostility worse than the kind
their great-grandfathers remembered from the 1920s in the Ukraine.
It's hard to unpack hatred which
itself is an illogical impulse. In the Charedi world many say that the
hostility stems from feelings of guilt about not living Torah lives, but that's
a theory, impossible to prove. And of course a Chiloni will object to
that idea as what's to feel guilty about? If you ask Chilonim, they'll refer
inevitably to military service. Evidently, in their eyes the only meaningful
way of contributing to a society is via a government program. Those Charedim
refuse to serve. (Actually, 30% of Charedi males serve in the military.)
I have been been waiting for years to
hear somebody ask respectfully, why do many refuse? This rather than the
knee-jerk impulse of condemnation: they are bums, they have no gratitude, they
want us to do the work. Instead ask why. Pose a question. We learn when ask
questions.
The Charedim clearly are not bums. You
trying waking up everyday and spending an hour in prayer no matter the weather
or how tired you feel. They are not undisciplined people. They live a life that
is chock full of rules of the kind that Lieberman abhors. They fast five times
a year. Let him try that. They are not disloyal people. They are upholding the
traditions of everyone's great-grandparents. They live conservative
lives.
I wasted considerable time over the
last few weeks reading at least three-dozen articles in the mainstream press on
Charedim and the draft and did not see one single Chiloni writer ask the
question. Why do Charedim not want to serve? Why?
Since you did not ask, I'll tell you:
they do serve. They serve God. The question is why do Chilonim refuse to serve.
See, it's the same question for the controversy over the draft is a religious
one. The military was founded and designed in large part as an assimilation
mechanism into secularity. The very anti-religious David Ben-Gurion referred to
the military as "the melting pot" through which “that human mixture
which is flowing from many exiles, [can] be smelted, refined, and purified of its
foreign and worthless dross.” As writer Zvi Zameret notes, “this dross no doubt
included many of the commandments that condition behavior between man and His
Maker, commandments which Ben-Gurion did not value.” The Israeli military was
designed to create secular Israelis. Anshel Pfeffer of Haaretz explained it
well in his article, “Forget Judaism – the Military Is Israel’s State
Religion.” He wrote, “But as far as any form of Israeli secularism, or
religion, goes, the IDF is the most powerful one Israel has today. It’s the
closest thing we have to a state religion. It’s certainly the strongest stream
of Judaism.”
This is what Charedim are opposing.
They have their reasons. They aren't bums and ingrates. Military training in
most countries is designed to train young people to follow orders from
strangers and to kill. People don't naturally do such things. The military does
this by breaking them down. The Israeli military uses those same conditioning
mechanisms to brainwash soldiers in ideology that Charedim find abhorrent -
that no divine being protected us in exile and that only the guns and tanks of
the IDF will ever do it. For those who are unschooled in religious thought,
this is an heretical idea. It pervades Zionist thought, Israeli society, and
the military in particular.
To Charedim, religion is life. To the
founders of the country, getting away from religion was life. They built the
country in their image. See the problem? It is a massive cultural contrast. But
it isn't the Charedim coming after the Chilonim for the most part. Yes, there
is rabbinical control (more Dati Leumi than Charedi) over marriage licensing
and certain activities on the Sabbath in many places, but not much more than
that. In the sum of things, Chilonim have way more control over the country
than Charedim do. It isn't even close. And the Charedim aren't coming after the
Chilonim even remotely on the scale that Chilonim are coming after the Charedim
via educational policy and most of all via the draft.
And the Charedi response to that? To
employ the most tired of Israeli cliches, the Charedim have a right to defend
themselves. They see the military as heretical and a threat to their values.
This isn't just about Torah study, it's about an entire way of life.
Given that the the State of Israel has
not been invaded by another country in half a century, the Chilonim really need
to consider just letting it go. They already see the Charedim as living in
another century, in another world. Look at them as a nation apart like they do
the Arabs who also don't serve - don't serve the military. As I said, 30% of
Charedi males do enter the military. It’s enough already.
But what about money, don't the
Charedim extort money? Tell me, did you go to private school? Most of the
private schools I have seen in Israel are Charedi schools. And even the ones
who get state funding are mostly privately funded. This is another one of the
little truths that are not spoken of in Israel. Charedim bring in billions of
shekels from overseas. Israel doesn't exactly have a Western European welfare
system. If Charedim are eating and living under roofs, it isn't because of the
largess of the Israeli government. It comes from working and from overseas
donations. And by way, one of the reasons more Charedi men don't work is
because working eliminates their draft exemption. The Israeli government is the
biggest cause of Charedi unemployment.
Have you ever seen Charedi school
buildings? On the outside of any building of any substance you'll see
references to places like Brooklyn, NY and Los Angeles. That's where the money
comes from, not from the Israeli government. Many Charedi children attend
school in trailers.
Not so the secular Israelis. They have
lovely buildings, paid for by the Israeli government, well taxpayers
ultimately. Somehow this isn't called extortion. It's just normal. Kids go to
public school. But if Charedim ask for half the money that Chiloni schools get
they are branded extortionists.
On and on it goes. The doublespeak,
hypocrisy, and ignorance directed at Charedim in Israel indicates that the
founders of the country succeeded in creating a European society -- and by that
I mean an antisemitic one with its very own version of blood libels.
Nevertheless, Israeli politicians and journalists will continue to brand people
all over the world as antisemites for daring to ever utter the slightest
criticism against Israeli anything, except when it concerns Charedim. And not
only that, certain Israeli Chilonim will lead the way on those attacks.
Reportedly, the Knesset seats for Lieberman's party are projected to increase
from 5 to 9. His antisemitism, ah anti-Charedism, struck a chord it seems with
some Israelis. May God protect us from the antisemites.
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