Charedim Should be Shamed, not Pressed into Service

by Saul Sadka

A few weeks ago I was sitting around a table here in Tel Aviv with a group of well known locals. We played a game where everyone had to offer an “unpopular opinion.” And I went all out, people actually gasped, so I suppose I won, since I proposed:

 “Haredim should not be forcibly conscripted to the IDF.”

Most Haredim are fascinated by the world beyond their shtetls. They are avid consumers of news and, secretly—though officially non-Zionist for arcane religious reasons—identify with the State of Israel.

Yes, it is unjust and shameful that they refuse to serve in the armed forces alongside their brethren, and they should indeed be shamed and penalized for that. The current official Haredi units are composed mostly of people on the margins of their society, or of those who have all but left it. In their hearts, even if they won’t admit it, most Haredim know that their side was wrong about Zionism and Herzl—and that the leader of the religious Zionists, Rabbi Kook, was correct.

It isn’t me saying that, but one of the most senior rabbis in the Haredi world (whom I won’t name, since it was a private conversation), related to nearly every Lithuanian rabbinic giant of the last generation, told me recently: “Everyone knows Rabbi Kook was correct.”

They cannot admit this to each other, since the core creed of Haredi Judaism is that “Everything new is forbidden.” Hence the clothing choices preserved from whichever era was deemed best for each subgroup: 18th-century garb for the Hasidim, early-20th-century attire for the yeshiva types, and early-1970s shift collars over jacket lapels for the religious Zionists, who still pine for the era when Sinai was Israel.

The thing to know about the Haredim is that they see themselves as the True Jews. Anyone who comes to prick their bubble—for it is a bubble—they have been trained to see as the latest incarnation of the eternal enemy of the True Jews. But more and more, the cognitive dissonance is breaking through. It is the Jihadis who are the true enemy—they know this deep down—and their daily study of ancient texts isn’t actually what protects their families from the Jihadis. It’s the guys and girls with the guns.

If pressed, the Haredim will argue that while all Israel is one nation, they are the soul and the secular are the body. But they’ve actually got it the wrong way round. Studying ancient texts in the same way generation after generation, while not contributing productively or equally bearing the burdens of society, is not “soul.” Their culture and even language increasingly cringe toward mainstream Israeli culture; little that is original emerges from Haredi society.

It is, in fact, the secular who are the soul—who have truly built a new Jew. The Haredim are, accidentally, the body—their profligate birthrate has buried the hopes the local Arabs once had of outnumbering, and thus overcoming, their Jewish neighbors. The secular though they we were body, but turn out to the soul. The Haredi think they are the soul but are actually the body. The message: Don’t force things to hard.

Soft shaming for being “yellow” will have more effect, and with less of the negatively side-effects of any attempt at forced conscription. Israeli politicians should avoid the easy point-scoring they can achieve here and focus instead on the long game.