The subtitle of this essay is, ‘Measure-for-Measure’
Yair Lapid, the Head of Israel’s Yesh Atid political party, is also Israel’s Finance Minister. Since beginning his term as Israel’s premier ‘bean counter’ (March 2013), he has proclaimed his dedication to sound fiscal planning. He will control Israel’s expenses. He will punish welfare cheats. He will reduce Israel’s budget deficit.
He will save Israel.
He starts his path to Glory with those welfare cheats. He has found thousands of them.
In Israel, the accepted way of life for youth is to graduate high school and do army or National Service before getting on with life. Your service-to-country opens doors, benefits, education opportunities and jobs. It is how you live as a young Israeli.
Haredi (the ultra-orthodox) do not live this way. For religious reasons, most Haredi men do not enlist into the IDF (Israel Defense Force) or do National Service (which is similar to America’s VISTA volunteer program).
Haredi study Torah. They dedicate their lives to Torah. They work in ‘Torah study’. They do not work in secular environments.
But they receive government money. Their Yeshivot (schools) receive State funding to teach them Torah. Their families receive benefits for living needs.
That enrages some Israelis. These Israelis do not support Torah study. Many do not even like Tora. They work at ‘normal’ jobs. They pay high taxes. They believe that Haredi men are ‘welfare cheats’. They want the Haredi to forget the Torah (the core of our religion) and go to work.
These Israelis speak harshly of Haredi. Because Haredi choose not to serve or work in the traditional way (and yet receive government assistance), some Israelis call them ‘parasites’.
To financial and accounting experts, there is too much unemployment among Haredi. There is too little income tax paid by Haredi. There are too many benefits paid to Haredi.
But the real challenge in Israel is not how to punish Haredi for being ‘parasites’. It’s how to help Haredi meld their ‘work’ in Torah with traditional work, and how to bring Haredi youth into army/National Service in a way that does not contradict their beliefs.
Several recommendations have been made. Some Haredi programs have begun. Progress has been made. But it is a slow progress.
It’s too slow for those who call Haredi ‘parasites’.
Enter Israel’s newest hero, Yair Lapid. He has a plan. He will use the issue of army/National Service to wean the Haredi from public welfare.
He will use that issue as a sledge hammer. He will use that hammer against the Haredi.
He will use the Haredi to save Israel.
His plan is simple. He will cut off government funds to Yeshivot (religious schools) where service-avoiding Haredi youth attend. He will curtail support payments to families of Haredi who avoid serving. He will seek a prison sentence for every Haredi youth who refuses to serve.
Nobody talks about cutting funds to Universities where a growing number of secular ‘draft-dodgers’ attend. No one talks about support payment cut-off or prison terms for secular youth who defy Service.
But they talk about these things for the Haredi. Lapid has listened to that talk. He has found a solution for that talk.
There’s just one problem. Lapid’s plan won’t work. It doesn’t save money. It costs money.
The cost
Think about it. Lapid’s plan is based on coercing Haredi youth into the army. That starts with arresting Haredi ‘draft dodgers’ (you go to prison or the army; you choose).
It costs money to find which Haredi youth to arrest. It costs more money to arrest and process them through the justice system.
Then it costs money to drive them to prison. It costs money to run the prisons. It costs money to repair and maintain the prisons. It costs money to pay court, police, transportation and prison workers.
It will cost money to handle the legal work Haredi lawyers will create by appeals and complaints. It will cost money to deal with Haredi protests around Israel—to pay for police, court, transportation and detention costs generated by Haredi protest arrests.
By the time you add it all up—including State and employer contributions to employee health and pension benefits—the cost-per-Haredi inmate far exceeds the money saved from ending Haredi benefit payments.
This isn’t chump change we’re talking about. Lapid thinks he can save Israel several million NIS. But his plan will cost Israel tens of millions to arrest, process, house and maintain his Haredi prisoners.
Yesterday (February 19, 2014), the Knesset committee tasked with preparing a new draft law (to address the Haredi-army issue) approved criminal sanctions for Hareidim who evade army service. But because this is Israel, that committee vote is not the end of the matter. There will be a re-vote. That re-vote will be ‘later.’
Lapid, Israel’s new hero, wants these criminal sanctions for Haredi. He has threatened to bring down the government (by bolting the coalition) if he does not get his criminalization. He is now more than half-way to his goal.
If he succeeds, he could be a man of firsts in Israel. He could become the first man in Israel to turn Haredi youth into convicts who, because of their convictions, may not be able to find work—and who will therefore have to receive government benefits for their living needs—for the rest of their lives.
He could also become the first Israeli official to pick Israel’s pocket. He might indeed punish the Haredi. But, as you have just seen, he could also get Israel robbed by that punishment.
Perhaps that’s why the subtitle here is, ‘Measure-for-Measure.’
@ yyamit82:
I have a “Russian Thistle” garden. They are milk weeds and are the sustenance for certain types of butterflies. Spray them and they make great yard decorations.
@ honeybee:
@ the phoenix:
Tumbleweeds & Terrorists
@ honeybee:
@ the phoenix:
Tumbleweeds & Terrorists
Bread for Thought
@ yamit82:
Thank you yamit.
From her articles, I have identified with:
And then, THIS struck me like the proverbial ton of bricks:
What to me boils down to :”have faith!”
I understand this, but on an intellectual level, which is not the same as a visceral understanding….. (Then again, It is quite a distance I have traveled….. 🙂 )
There are still obviously a few (actually many 😉 ) questions and dilemmas
God, supposedly helps those that help themselves (be proactive) so when one sees destruction occurring, and about to occur…. What should one do????
Just keep on plodding away having faith that in spite of what one’s eyes see….. All is good …. Zeh yhieh b’seder….
?????????????????????? (To paraphrase hb, that just made a cameo appearance yesterday… 😉 )
@ the phoenix:
🙂
a few of her articles you might enjoy.
Wandering in the Desert
Justice, Justice You Will Pursue
Destroying the Master’s Tools
@ yamit82:
http://youtu.be/KlJHxZMXIuI
Ecclesiastes 1:9
The Mitzvah of Military Service
Shall your brothers go to war while you stay here?
Michelle Nevada
It is matter of general agreement that Israel owes its very existence to Divine intervention. There were just too many nations against us at our inception, during our major wars, at the apex this moment, to reach any other conclusion. We are blessed.
He goes on to equate the possible avoidance of military service with turning against G-d. He accuses them of being no better than the spies who forced the people to wander for 40 years in the desert:
“Now behold you have risen up in the place of your fathers, a brood of transgressors, to bring even more of God’s wrath upon Israel. If you turn away from Him, He will leave us in the wilderness and you will have destroyed this whole people.” (Numbers 32: 15)
Moshe is not satisfied until he extracts a promise from the tribes of Gad, Reuven and half of Menashe that they will serve in war against Israel’s enemies.
Unfortunately, many of our current scholars have remembered the lesson that Israel needs scholars, and have forgotten the lesson that failing to defend our nation is equal to the sin of the spies.
Right now there are far too many young men studying in yeshiva in lieu of serving in the IDF. I don’t believe that all of them are needed in that capacity. Right now, over 50,000 students are exempt from military service – an unprecedented number and one clearly out of sync with the importance of military service in the history of our nation.
I admit there are some young men who excel so greatly at the study of Torah that one minute spent away from the study hall would be a terrible loss to our nation. But let’s be honest, not every young man who sits down with a book has the capacity, the intellect or the drive to become a Torah giant.
We need a compromise that acknowledges the importance of true Torah scholars while providing the opportunity for the rest to participate in the mitzvah of defending the Jewish nation.
The hareidi and Religious Zionist community believe, as do others, that Torah study is to be viewed as creating spiritual merit that translates to physical protection for the nation of Israel. Until 2012, yeshiva students were allowed by law to defer military service in favor of full-time Torah study; MKs are now creating a new law after the old law was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Bull shit article from beginning to end.
‘No Hareidi Draft Dodger is Going to Jail’
Former IDF Chief Rabbi Avihai Rontzki insists that enacting criminal sanctions for hareidi draft-dodgers is a mere formality.
Jewish Home MK Slams Yesh Atid for ‘Fanning Flames of Hate’
Jewish Home MK Yoni Chetboun praised the Shaked Committee for its work – and warned against using it to ‘fan the flames of hate’
There has alwasys been a law against draft dodgers usually a few months in the lock up and after release if they refuse a second time again a few months in lock up etc. IDF and the police do not have the manpower or the will to arrest mass draft dodgers no where to put them unless we release all the Arab terrorists and replace them with Haredim. 🙂 Most will marry before their three year extention is up giving them automatic deferrals. The IDF will find ways to reject many from active service because they require too many special requirements like Glatt Kosher refusing operations on Shabbat and units without girls who make up a large force of instructors…. It will cost the IDF much more to accommodate their needs than any other recruit and draftee. The IDF do not want special units for different groups but integrated units representing all streams of Israeli society.
The heads of Yeshvot do not want to lose their income paid on a per student basis. For the three year extention they will be paid more than they are today about 1500 dollars a month per student. It’s actually a substantial raise in per-diem for them. Actually they are pleased with the results. It’s called Israbluff
Great article by Tuvia and a great comment by David. Thanks for posting this Ted. It needs to be heard. I don’t ever recall hearing that Lapid wanted to send Yeshiva bachers to prison when he was campaigning for PM. I know of quite a few secular Israelis who consider themselves peaceniks and never served in the IDF without any consequence. Sadly there are and have always been secular Jews or at least non-religious Jews who don’t like religious Jews and consider them backwards people who belong to an ancient age. There is another element not mentioned. There are plenty of orthodox Jews who contribute a lot to society in Israel. Albeit the religious communities that they live in but none the less most of those orthodox communities are flourishing! Have you tried to price out a condo in the orthodox city of Bnei Brak outside of Tel Aviv? Or any of the new towns where young Haredi families are making their homes? These Israelis are no less industrious than their secular counterparts. The handouts they get from the government are a pittance compared to the wealthy tax evaders. A common trait in all democracies. Why doesn’t Lapid go after them? Perhaps they are his sponsors? They often build their own hospitals, nursing homes and schools. BTW I happen to be a secular Jew in Toronto. But we should not be fighting amongst ourselves and we should not be attacking our Haredi brothers. Lets not forget that Israel was founded as a JEWISH state. If not for the Haredi, we would not exist as Jews today. If anyone disagrees I don’t think they are being honest with themselves. The more Lapid talks, the more he reminds me of Obama. That is not meant to be a compliment. I could think of a thousand things he could propose to make things fairer without forcing these religious children to fight in the IDF or send them to prison if they don’t. Even as a secular Jew I think we can do worse than to study a little Torah ourselves!
For starters, I wonder how Dov Lipman can sit in Lapid’s party. I have to say the amount of venom and hostility towards the Chareidi world is almost pathological and borders on a new form of anti-Semitism by other Jewish? Israelis is the guise of social justice. For one thing, it’s my understanding that the IDF doesn’t not need that many recruits in the first place. Second, if the goal of drafting the Chareidi is to get them into the work force for the good of Israeli society as well as for the good of the Chareidi to get them out of the cycle of poverty why do they all need to go through army service in order to get there. Third, any change should be done slowly, with compassion. Only then can one expect results as well as cooperation. I remember when, in 1996, in the States, Bill Clinton signed the Welfare to Work reform (which, of course, was a Republican idea he took on during an election year strictly for political reasons) how millions of people were give 5 years to continue on welfare while they received job training and after 5 years were then able to enter the workforce and get off welfare and onto a paycheck. It took millions off the rolls and saved billions of dollars. Anyone who still really needed the benefits would not be taken off. The amount of money saved probably single-handedly contributed to the surplus that existed by the end of Clinton’s second term. Besides the money it saved the government, the dignity that goes along with a paycheck and the self-reliance that comes with it cannot be underestimated. Maybe if some of these leftist Chareidi-bashers, to say the least, could see that if they showed a little more compassion towards them and the problem of poverty in the Chareidi world that leads to problems in all of Israel with a little more compassion progress in improving their lot could be made. This whole idea of criminalization to force army service on them to Segway the Chareidi men into the workforce will only backfire and lead to more divisiveness and destruction towards Israel than any economic burdens it may presently cause. It is an abomination that this should take place in Israel. And all those who bash and spew their venom towards the Chareidi and try to use the issue of “equal burden” through army service to seek some kind of vengeance ought to look in the mirror and ask themselves serious questions about why they really feel the way they do so just like the Chareidi have to do some soul searching to do cooperate in efforts to get them out of the cyle of poverty so to must their critics do some soul searching to ask themselves what their animosity towards the Torah world really is all about. Only then will there able to be a meaningful dialogue and progress towards a really decent and basically, if you will, happy, solution to this terrible problem in Israeli society. It seems almost counter-phobic that the Left, so afraid of religious oppression, will do almost anything to oppress the religious and to kill off the Torah world- even using the legitimate economic/societal problem of Chareidi poverty to do so. If they really cared about Israeli society so much they would care about the Chareidi as well and show more compassion when they address these sensitive issues. Who, I ask, are the real intolerant ones?
And what about the over one million Arab citizens of Israel? Wasn’t this measure meant to treat all Israelis in the same fashion? Equal benefits, equal responsibilities – a balance of rights and obligations? Or was this a ploy by Lapid, who nurtured by his father’s anti-Jewish sentiments, is really all about attacking the Torah observant world? That the Arab Israelis seem to be left out of Lapid’s equation, his true motives are no longer grounds for speculation.