Do people really hate Charedim?"

by Rationalist Judaism Blog 

I’m always astounded at the frequent charedi claim that the widespread antipathy towards them is motivated by some sort of deep-rooted hatred of Judaism/ Hashem/ Torah. Some people describe it straight-out as antisemitism.

Really? Is there no other possible reason why resent charedim? You can't conceive of anything else?

Let’s consider one example. 

Among the list of demands presented by UTJ to Bibi was to increase the number of gender-segregated beaches. Now, in principle gender-segregated beaches are a great idea. I have no idea if they currently exist in proportion to the number of people who want them, but for argument’s sake, let’s say that they do not. Thus, it is reasonable from a standpoint of democracy for charedim to want more.

However.

Obviously any beach which is viable to use and accessible by public transportation is a beach that is currently already being used as a mixed beach. And any such beach is being used by tens if not hundreds of thousands of people annually who want to go to a beach with a mix of genders. So all these people would one day suddenly find out that their beloved beach is no longer available for use by them, because the charedim have taken it away.

How do you think that they will feel about charedim? (And does that even enter the equation for chareidi policymakers, representing a group that claims that the most important thing is to bring everyone to a life of Avodas Hashem?)

And this is just a microcosm of the problem.

 Just consider some of the other demands - formalizing a permanent exemption from IDF service for charedim; doubling the payments to people in yeshivah and kollel, beyond that of what many soldiers receive; subsidizing public transportation just for charedim; ensuring chareidi control of religious services, kashrut certification, activities at the Kotel, and so on.

How on earth can anyone be surprised that this causes resentment?!

Why can't it be that the rest of Israel resent the fact that they send their children to the army for years, while charedim sit in yeshivos and don't show the slightest hakaras hatov for the sacrifices made on their behalf? 

Why can't it be that people think it's a disaster for the country when a rapidly-growing sector of the population demands to bring up their children with zero secular education and zero desire to enter the workforce? 

Why can't it be that people resent having to give an ever-increasing amount of money to a large segment of the population that claims a right to be vastly underemployed, to have enormous discounts on taxes, and to be subsidized in their chumras by everyone else? 

How do you think the rest of Israel feels about a community that is always available to gather for mass rallies against their sharing national responsibilities, because they don’t have anything else that they need to do?

Bibi might have fooled much of the country into thinking that the past election was about an illusory “Right” vs. “Left” rather than about his personal power and his need to stay out of prison. But one day he will be gone, and elections will pit the majority of the country, who have negligible disagreement about security issues but agree very much about equality and the need for a healthy economy, against charedim. The chareidim will scream that it’s all about hatred of Torah, but the reality is that they will only have themselves to blame.