Is secularism too seductive? Haredi youth should be allowed to serve in the IDF - opinion

Israel is barreling toward an April deadline imposed by the High Court for either a formalization of or an end to the longstanding haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft exemption. Discourse grows heated and risks a dangerous kulturkampf, might bring down the government, and touches on Jewish ethics, military issues, society, and the economy.

And so, I read with interest the op-ed on these pages by Rabbi David Stav, the founder and chair of the Tzohar Rabbinical Organization. Like me, he considers the haredi community’s refusal to serve (in his words) “a massive moral stain [and] a desecration of God’s name (Hilul Hashem) that cannot be forgiven.”

Yet he argues that the draft can’t be coerced – and here we somewhat disagree.

I don’t dispute that Israeli society must proceed with some sensitivity, and also with appreciation for the importance of religious scholarship. But the acquiescence to the impossibility of coercion is defeatist and unfair.

Moreover, the refusal to serve does not stem from holding pacifist views (which one could argue should be respected); haredi voters as a bloc are now among the most aggressive on military and Palestinian issues. They are solidly on the Right, favoring, for example, Israel’s continued presence in the West Bank [Judea and Samaria], but refuse to serve in the military which secures and polices the territory. 

No, the idea is simply that whereas secular people in Israel, by and large, can be coerced – as in all countries with universal conscription – in the case of the haredim, their steadfast refusal to serve will remain unbowed.

Stav explains that haredi leadership have a very particular concern: that haredi youth, once in the military, could be seduced by secular life and leave the fold.

I assess this observation to be correct. But it is critical for the wider society to help the haredim, gently but firmly, get over this fear.

There are worse things in the world. One of them is the current war with Hamas, in which the military finds itself, for the first time in many decades, short of soldiers.

The burden on non-haredi Israelis is becoming overwhelming. Beyond the practical, there is a sense of a deep violation of the Jewish principle of “Kol Yisrael arevim ze-bazeh” – a mutual responsibility for each other’s well-being.

In a sign of the heating atmosphere, some less-than-sagacious haredi figures have argued that Torah study is more important for national defense than the IDF.

And on Saturday, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef warned that “if they force us to join the army, we will all move abroad.” Given the level of antipathy toward the haredim in many parts of Israel, that statement was not effective as a threat – but there is no doubt of its tenacity.

What is the arrangement to which he clings?

The current situation is that youth well into their late 20s can avoid the military by studying Torah, driving many who are in no way “religious sages” to stay in yeshiva instead of joining the workforce, thus compounding the damage to society – and, I would add, somewhat cheapening the brand of the yeshivot.

Because it also impacts the workforce, haredi men’s workforce participation is at barely 50% – far lower than haredi women – and many of those employed work in government-funded positions in the bloated public religious-services sector.

Given the birthrate of almost seven children per family, close to a third of today’s first-graders are haredi; the boys will mostly move on to high school where they will not study math, English, or science, and then on to the military exemption.

It is clear to see where this is headed, and most of it must end (inter alia, through core curriculum-related funding requirements for schools).

At a time when secular Israelis and their national-religious brothers are facing lengthening terms as conscripts followed by long months of annual reserve duty, and Israel has absorbed almost 2,000 deaths in the war, rage is mounting.

The current conscription environment was an informal scheme of prime minister Menachem Begin, initiated some 45 years ago. Because of the birthrate, its impact has since ballooned.

Prior to that, only a few hundred genuine scholars were exempted annually, in a deal going back to David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister.

THE PRESENT situation is widely viewed by the non-haredi public and most legal scholars as an extreme case of inequality toward those who risk their lives. The courts have demanded action. The response of the haredi parties has been to persuade Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the informal scheme be enshrined in law.

A few weeks ago Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who, though from Netanyahu’s Likud, has shown traces of independence of thought, announced that he would not table the law unless moderate parties of the center-Left agreed, which they will not.

The haredim demand a workaround and threaten to bring down the coalition. If Netanyahu attempts a workaround, he will inflame public opinion (recent polls show that even a majority of Likud voters want the haredim drafted).

It is a real conundrum for Netanyahu, and it should be allowed to play out. If the government falls on this issue, there will be a real chance to reshuffle Israeli politics in a way that will enable a fix, not just to this problem but to many others also. The current Right-religious coalition is paralyzed on the issue because without the Haredi parties it has no majority and cannot hope for one in the future.

STAV’S SOLUTION is instead to replace the arrangement with a multi-track system that allows for non-military forms of national service. It’s not a terrible idea to offer the option not just to haredim but a wider swath of the public – to Arab citizens, pacifists, women perhaps, and those with special skills or special needs. But as a sweeping solution for the haredim only, it reeks of yet more inequality.

The haredi leadership is right that many of their youth will, once relieved of their blinders and freed of their shackles, drift away from the haredi lifestyle – and that is perfectly fine. Just as not everyone is cut out to be a Torah scholar, not everyone naturally wishes to devote their lives to worship to the degree haredim do.

If being born into a haredi family means you must remain haredi, and the birthrate continues for a few more generations, the sector will dominate the country. Unless behavior changes, the economy will collapse, and so will Israel’s capacity to defend itself. Something, quite clearly and rather quickly, has to give.

Secular Israelis are asked to accept that their sons and daughters might become religious, after all. It is a two-way street. The free market in ideas demands that the haredim accept the consequences of allowing their youth to encounter the full range of possibilities of the human experience.

The writer was the regional chief of AP in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, chaired the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem, and authored two books on Israel. Follow him at danperry.substack.com.