Deep changes must take place in Israeli society for it to emerge united - editorial

The unanimous ruling by the High Court of Justice on Tuesday to order a full draft of eligible ultra-Orthodox (haredi) men to the IDF was a watershed moment, one that was years in the making.

The most immediate decision was an order to the government to draft 3,000 haredim throughout the 2024 recruitment class, out of 60,000.

But the real changes that need to take place go much deeper. They rest in ideologies, history, organized religion, and in societal group experiences that cannot be amended or undone in one day with a single court decision.

It may, perhaps, even take more than a generation to change, along with reeducation for everyone with Israeli citizenship to view the issue and to look at their fellow citizens differently.

Changes must occur

But it can be done, and it must be done. Just read what Jerusalem Affairs and Jewish Tradition Minister MK Meir Porush (UTJ) said after the ruling: “The HCJ decision effectively forces two states here in Israel. The first is the State that operates as we know it now, while the second is a separate one where the yeshiva students will continue to learn Torah inside the confines of the State that [founder David] Ben-Gurion established. Nothing in the world is strong enough to force a man whose soul years to learn Torah, not to do so.”

This scenario is not new and touches on ideas that have been floated in the extremes of the conversation about haredi integration. In 2018, a dystopian TV drama called Autonomies premiered, in which Israeli society is split by a physical wall into a secular “State of Israel,” its capital – Tel Aviv, and a “Haredi Autonomy” in Jerusalem.

The nuanced middle ground that most of Israeli society has taken – that it is a give-and-take, that secularism has a place and Orthodoxy has a place – is not necessarily a given for everyone anymore. The foundations of societal comradery and equal burden that Ben-Gurion believed in and espoused have been sanded over in the decades that led us to today.

But, to emerge as a society that is strong and united, deep changes must take place, changes that go far beyond a court case. There is no vindication in Tuesday’s decision, not really; the truth is that it should never have come to this.

A partnership is a bridge, one that requires crossing on both sides. A synergy between haredim and the rest of Israeli society may be impossible at its core. 

Some facts aren’t changing: We all live here together, and we all need to keep doing so, in a way that allows us to live fruitfully and flourish. And so, we must come to the table.

Responsibility cannot be pardoned by the government, which had nearly three decades to resolve this issue. Acting Supreme Court President Uzi Fogelman said at the decision on Tuesday that the government, countering its positions, did not provide a legal alternative, “leaving us in the same situation we were in 25 years ago. At this point, there is no escaping the need to reiterate what we have said in the past: The executive branch does not have the grounds to not apply the National Service Law to the yeshiva students, sans a proper legal alternative.”

“The conclusion is that the government acted against the law, sharpened by the war and its needs,” he continued

True partnership begins with educational reforms – on both sides – to lessen the threat haredi society feels towards the very secular nature of the state, and inform secular society of the true value of a Torah-led life, in an authentic way.

Only by bridging the gaps in how the different groups see each other can real dialogue be formed. It continues to the army, professional spaces, and then to the seats of decision-makers, but it has to start somewhere and it has to start with the people.

The court decision is necessary, important, and pertinent to success in the war and to the future of the country.

But in terms of the societal splits on which the court was asked to deliberate, it is a superficial Band-Aid, one that covers a deeper wound than can be fixed by the court alone.