By Victor Rosenthal
The study of Torah is good in combination with an occupation, since the toil of both makes sin forgotten. All Torah that is not combined with work will eventually cease and lead to sin. — Rabban Gamliel, son of Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi (Babylonian Talmud, Avot 2:2)
Without Herut and Without Maki – David Ben Gurion*
I like reading about Jewish history and especially the modern history of the State of Israel. One thing I learned about were the almost incomprehensible sacrifices made by some people in order to get here, to create an actual Jewish state in our homeland after millennia of often oppressive exile, and to defend it in essentially a 71-year long war. Maybe longer. The land is soaked in our blood, the blood of Jewish people.
The world is full of Jew-haters. It seems that it has always been so, since the day we left Egypt. When they didn’t hate us, they tolerated us as second-class humans. Sometimes not even as humans.
In most places, they got what they always said they wanted. Much of the world is now Jew-free. Hitler and Stalin eliminated the Jews of Europe, and the Muslim world vomited them out in response to the “insult” of the re-establishment of our state. The Jewish state has become the center of the Jewish universe, in one human lifetime. The conditions that allowed the Jewish people to survive as a people in diaspora are now gone. If the Jewish state does not continue to exist, neither will the Jewish people.
Unfortunately, the State of Israel is in serious danger now. And not just from the Iranian regime and the Palestinian Arabs (although these are serious threats too).
In an article published a few weeks ago demographer Dan Ben-David notes that the academic accomplishments of Israeli children are among the worst in the developed world. Without a well-educated population, we will not be able to maintain our first-world economy, or for that matter, our first-world military. This is in part because of the combination of the lack of a core curriculum including “secular” subjects like mathematics and English in Haredi schools, and an astronomical Haredi birthrate of “7.1 children, in contrast to 4.0 among [non-Haredi] religious Jews, 3.4 among Muslim Arab-Israelis and 2.2 among secular Jews.”
Here is a graph that projects the likely size of these groups in 2065:
It is reassuring to know that Meir Kahane’s prediction that the Arabs would out-reproduce us will not be fulfilled, but the explosive growth of a Haredi population that is not prepared to contribute to a modern technology and information based economy is unsustainable. In 2014 only 13% of Haredi 12th grade boys took matriculation exams required for admission to universities, compared to 78% of non-Haredi boys (figures for girls are higher, 32% vs. 87%). Although entrance requirements to universities are often waived for them, there is a high dropout rate. In 2014 only 2.4% of Haredi men and 8.3% of Haredi women aged 25-35 held academic degrees, compared to 28% and 45% respectively in the non-Haredi population.
“High-tech” is only a solution for those who can read documentation in English and do mathematics. Gemara may or may not have spiritual value, but it isn’t helpful in microprocessor design, for example.
Although non-Haredim are angered by the refusal of the Haredi parties to agree to allow a reasonable percentage of their youth to do military service (or other national service), the worse problem is that they are not suited for it, or for many other kinds of employment – intellectually, physically, or temperamentally.
This is a politically-caused problem. The laws that would require secular subjects to be taught in any school that receives government funding either don’t exist, have no teeth, or are not enforced. The government supports the yeshivot in which young men study Torah, and liberal welfare benefits make it possible for underemployed families (supported primarily by women, who mostly work in education or child care in their communities for low salaries) to grow unaffected by economic constraints.
The fact that almost every Israeli government since the first has included the Haredi parties, with them often holding the balance of power, means that little is done to change the situation.
I am not anti-religion and I am not anti-Haredi. But the existence of a large class of Jews whose only occupation is study has never before existed in Jewish history. Perhaps there are 100 or even 1000 Torah scholars so important that they should be supported by the state – but tens or hundreds of thousands?
I am aware that the Left uses these facts as ammunition against the Right, which most recently has been depending on support from the Haredi parties to form its coalitions. But nevertheless they are facts, and we have to face the truth that the Right, for which I vote, has been irresponsible, caving in to the exaggerated demands of the Haredim.
It seems to me that war with Iran and/or its proxies is inevitable, and analysts agree that this will be one of Israel’s most difficult wars, both for the IDF and for the home front, which will be exposed to the huge missile arsenals accumulated by Hamas and especially Hezbollah. At this moment, tension is especially high, and it seems clear that we need a strong national unity government capable of both managing the war to come and bringing together the population.
Unfortunately, Benny Gantz is a mediocrity with a mediocre record who should not be Prime Minister, and his associates are worse. Binyamin Netanyahu is under a legal cloud and will probably be indicted. Despite his brilliance, Netanyahu seems to only be able to function as a dictator, one who believes that he is both omnipotent and immortal, and doesn’t need to delegate authority or allow for a successor.
As I write, the anti-Zionist Arab parties are considering recommending Gantz to the President to form the government. They haven’t recommended a Zionist party since 1992, when they recommended Rabin’s Labor Party. If they do, they will have received some significant promises in return. If Gantz were to make a deal with them, it would be something less than treasonous, but still a betrayal.
The best practical solution seems to be a unity government without Arabs (or acquiescence to their demands) and without Haredim, with the Likud led by someone other than Netanyahu. And yes, there would have to be a rotation of the PM job between Likud and Blue and White.
Is such a thing possible? I don’t know. Certainly today it looks unlikely.
But one thing is certain: there will not be another election. Only politicians and ad agencies like elections, and the people have had enough. We need a government, and we need it now – before we are at war.
_____________________________
* A campaign slogan of Ben Gurion’s, meaning that neither Herut – the predecessor of today’s Likud and a party that Ben Gurion wanted to paint as extremist – and Maki, the communist party, could join his coalition.
@ yoel ben-avraham: Yoel, if there is a poisonous snake near you curled in the grass, ready to strike, would it not make sense to ignore the mosquitos buzzing around your head, until you have dealt with the snake?
I don’t see how alienating 15% of the Jewish population will result in a “stable sufficient country.” We need Jewish unity in these perilous times.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
And that, threats of intimidation against the general population, is a justifiable reason not to do what is necessary for a stable self sufficient country in the short and especially the long term?
@ Edgar G.: I don’t know about the Latvian Jewish community, Edgar. I do know that in many Jewish communities in Ukraine and Belorussia, local Jewish councils were tasked by the government with selecting the boys (you are right, they were boys, not men) to be handed over to the army for those 25 years of service, in which they were subject to indoctrination in Christianity. Some of the local Jewish leaders reluctantly cooperated, usually turning over boys from poor families who were not considered to be very good students in the headers. The families often did what they could to hide the boys or send them to live with relatives far away to escape the draft. If that happened, the local collaborating Jewish leaders would hire “catchers” to locate the missing drafted boys, or became “catchers” themselves. They rationalized their collaboration with the Russian authorities on the grounds that it would be much worse if Russian armies went dooe to door to seize whatever boys they chose.
Although there is no actual similarity between the tsarist Russian draft system and the IDFs draft of adult young men for much shorter periods of time, and of course no pressure to abandon Judaism, many of the haredi leaders are convinced that the IDF draft is indeed similar to the tsar’s draft, and have frequently said so.They seem to live in the past and have not made the psychological transition from their communities past experiences in the diaspora to life in modern Eretz Israel. That is tragic.
IFrom your account, it sounds to me like your family may have fled Latvia for America to protect him, and your uncles (??) from being seized by “catchers.”
@ Bear Klein:
Yes you are right, he should have been grooming a successor for the past 5 years or more.
It could never, (in my opinion only), be “good” for Israel for Netanyahu to “depart” at this time, considering the especially dangerous period we’re faced with. And the way they’re trying to do it…It stinks worse that Mandelbilt’s beard. …
Liberman’s beard i dont mention because I cant stomach the smell of chazar. Really true, it makes me seriously nauseated. Every time I see his picture, I see “Napoleon” of “Animal Farm”…(coincidentally based on Stalin, a fellow Russian….)
Your talk about “healing” seems to me like the TV Evangelists getting silly people to put their hands on the TV screen whilst he screams “HEEALL”…
All the crap about “healing” is because of the artificially and deliberately induced inflammation by the news, radio, legal and other Netanyahu, rabid haters. If somehow, Natanyahu manages to cobble together a govenment led by him, they’ll all expire in their bile. I have never, ever seen a whole monstrous conspiracy to destroy a family, just to get at the head of that family…NEVE. Not eben in the worst annals of history.
Adam will perhaps agree, that comparisons would be the destruction of Mary Queen of Scots, and Lady Jane Gray. Also in a different era, Semmelweis.. I’m sure he can think of others……..
@ Edgar G.:I appreciate your support, Edgar.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
Your comment that the IDF has been cutting down on the numbers of young me it drafts is correct….as I pointed out last week, and several times before that.
This is not in answer to your post, as I’m not in the right mood to “jump in”.. , but re your comment about the Community Leaders in the shtetls chosing the young men to be drafted into the Tsar’s army, I have never heard this before. What I know for CERTAIN about those times, comes to me directly from my dear, beloved late father,
As ypung boy in Courland, (ii a Latvian shtetl) he was one of the look-outs to guard against pogroms. At age about 8-9, he had an eardrum permanently damaged, because at any time in the next 2-3 years the “chppers”, would arrive to round up the young boys to dragged away to army service of anything from 25 to 40 years. (Ben Gurion was one of those, and one of the VERY few who ever were able to return home), At the end of their service, they mostly were no longer Jews , and didn’t remember either where they’d lived or how to get there.
So they were NOT normally “young men” but mostly pre-barmitzvah kids. Perhaps in other parts of Russia, the customs were different, I know only of Naira (Yiddish… Junjelgva- Latvian) and what I’ve read of that method of destroying the Jewish people.
@ Edgar G.:
Bibi has done good things, I agree. One of the bad things he has done is NOT keeping a replacement for him at the ready. This is not good for Israel.
His time Is up I believe or nearly up for the good of the country. Israel needs to heal internally and he is doing the opposite he is helping polarize it.
@ Adam Dalgliesh:
ADAM-I have never agreed with you more thoroughly and completely as I have now, due to your so perspicacious post.
You saved me the task of repeating it in less fluent and convincing terms.
On another hand, I am truly surprised that Victor would write such -in my opinion- foolish nonsense.
@ Bear Klein:
BEAR-What do you expect…and why do you condemn. He is a Politician, and very fortunately for Israel, par excellence. He does what a politician does, Moreover, he is more than that-He is an International Statesman highly respected-if not loved.. The only one Israel has ever had, other than the Ben Gurion aborted attempt of Chaim Weizmann..
Perhaps Jabotinsky-if he had lived.
Is Israel, already, effectively at war? Has Bibi taking four cabinet posts for himself led to fewer leaks? If he commits ground forces into Gaza, now, will Israel be attacked from another end by Iran and its other proxies? Has Bibi’s equivocation about applying sovereignty and civil law, made it possible for Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab nations to fight a joint war against Iran? Are they likely to break off cooperation if this situation is resolved right now? Does it matter?
Bibi is very Machavellian and is always paranoid of who could knock him off his perch. He disposes of those he views as threats to his power. That is why there is a wasteland of ex-Likuniks who got too close to power or were viewed as a threat.
If he finds he can not control others in the Likud he makes life unpleasant for them or gets rid of them in one way or the other. Danny Dannon is great example he had gained a lot of power in the Likud as head of the Central Committee and was not allowing Bibi to do what he wanted in the Likud.
Bibi found a perfect manipulation bribe he got Dannon to agree to be the UN Ambassador and thereby got Dannon out his way.
This is by far the weakest point in Vic’s analysis. Bibi has never been a dictator, and there is no evidence that he has ever aspited to be one. During all of his years in office, the Supreme Court and a series of attorneys-general have exercised vast power, which they have used at Bibi’s expense. Now they are close to their long-term goal of removing him from office. Yet he has never proposed limiting their power–except perhaps, by half-heartedly supporting proposals to grant him amnesty, which the majority in his own party mainly refused to support.
The press has described other cabinet members and military chiefs-of-staff as playing a prominent role in decision-making as well. Bibi’s desire to bomb Iran was blocked on more than one occasion by them.
Bibi served in a subordinate capacity under Sharon for four years and worked constructively with him, despite their rivalry for leadership. He served as leader of the opposition for four years. He has shown an abiity to work constructively under other leaders, in situations where he was not in charge.
When it comes right down to it, the only rational objection to Bibi that his political enemies have offered is that he has been in office too long. But I think it is an inadequate objection. Maggie Thatcher was Prime Minister of the UK for eleven years, and was forced from office for the same reason that Bibi is likely to be deprived of his-people thought she had been in office too long. But it is not at all clear that her forced retirement did the UK any particular good.
It is not on table presently but for the Haredi draft Bennett and some others had a practical solution.
One pure forcing them to be drafted in large numbers could backfire. There is currently voluntary Haredim joining the military and the numbers thought not large have been increasing. Once done with the required service some of these Haredim have insisted they the be called for reserve duty.
If too strong an arm is applied on the Haredim to join the draft the volunteers may start backing off.
Bennett’s point was allow them to go into the work force and study in universities if qualified as they participate in the economy as producers and not welfare recipients is even more important.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/bennett-floats-alternative-to-ultra-orthodox-enlistment-bill/
If the haredim are shut out of the government, it is possiblle that they will stage riots and demonstrations that would go on for months. This would distract police from dealing with Arab terrorism, which would increase. It would also distract the public from the harm being done to Israel’s security by the PLO and Hamas agents in the government, and their allies Gantz and Lapid.
Concerning the demands for a secular state made by Vic, Leiberman and others, the only area where the hasidic parties will be willing to make some concessions is on the question of the draft for haredi men.
However,they will not agree to Leiberman’s demand that the Yeshivas must themselves choose which men are to be drafted and whitich should continue their studies, since that would create a wave of resentment and anger among the students and discredit the rosh yeshivot forced to perform this task. It would seem too much like the old system in tsarist Russia where local Jewish leaders were compelled to select which young men in their communities would be drafted into the tsar’s army. Remember, the haredi leaders think of Israel as more or less like old pre-Bolshvik Russia. Their mindset was created there.
I think they will eventually agree to let the army decide to draft those haredi youths whom the IDF determines are fit for service. However, they will also demand that the haredi draftees be allowed to serve in the all-haredi units where they will given ultra-kosher food, and the sexes are strictly segregated.
In practice, the iDF would then draft very few haredim, for many reasons. They will probably conclude, after calling them up for their physicals, that the majority of potential draftees among haredi young men (the haredim are absolutely opposed to their women serving), are unfit physically and/or mentally for service. A disproportionate number of young haredim are scrawny, underfed and in poor health. Their sedentary life of study has not equipped them for the physically active life of a soldier. Many are near-sighted to the point of not being correctable to 20-20, as a result of haredi prayer and study customs. Most lack the basic education in secular and/or technical studies needed to function effectively as soldiers.
The haredi demands that their soldiers receive special treatment, such as ultra-kosher food and avoidance of all contact with women and even most male non-observant soldiers, are extremely expensive to meet, and require a lot of time and effort for IDF officers to arrange, which the central command undoubtedly thinks can be better spent in more productive ways.
In any case, the army has been cutting back on the number of soldiers it drafts, not increasing the number of draftees. It has “layed off” large numbers of experienced older soldiers and reservists in recent years. Current military doctrine relies heavily on high-tech weaponry and intense training of soldiers in their use, not on a large number of infantrymen. As a result, the army drafts fewer men than in the past, and selects mainly those with advanced secular education and/or technical skills. Very few haredi men meet these criteria.
As a result, a law permitting the draft of haredi men may appease some sectors of public opinion that are offended by the blanket haredi exemption, but will have little impact on the number of haredim actually serving in the iDF. It will be largely symbolic in effect. That is why I believe that the haredi leaders will eventually agree to some sort of universal draft law.
The haredi leaders will never agree voluntarily to cuts in the funding provided to their yeshivas, religious courts, religious councils, etc. Major funding cuts in these religious programs will spark riots.
Vic says:
Vic is spot on in his analysis plus solution to forming a government! We need the Haredi for the most part working and doing some share in the military or national service. Also they are dividing Israel who the majority wants their coercive religion which is used for power and money reigned in.
Vic is crazy to think that the haredim, not the Arabs, are the enemy. The terrible conflicts we have among ourselves, which have led many Israelis to collaborate with the enemy are destroying us, much as they did in 66-70 C.E.
Gantz has made a deal with them, and it certainly is treason.