In many ways, I am grateful to have this blog. Not that anyone notices or even reads it, or even takes my writing into consideration. But for me, it is a blessing, namely because I often cannot think clearly until I write. My thoughts follow my writing. It sounds strange, but that is how it is. It’s been that way all my life.
So, today I welcome the opportunity to write about something that actually had me in tears yesterday. On Facebook, I had an interaction with a middle aged woman who had moved to Israel from the United States. She claimed to be Jewish. She knew a lot about the Jewish religion and responded to my post regarding various halachas, of which she was quite knowledgeable. For all intensive purposes, she had blended in with Israeli society perfectly, and was in love, rightfully so, with her decision to make aliyah. She loved Israel and was thrilled to be finally living there. What shocked me to the core was her volatile hatred of the Hareidi, who she considered ‘hiding in their yeshivas, taking up nothing more than space and air, and having no contributions whatsoever to society’.
Because of my conversation with this woman, I now realize how deeply ingrained the hatred and disrespect of the Hareidi is in Israeli society. It is as normal and commonplace as riding on the bus or taking a taxi; as ordinary as shopping in one of the many shuqs throughout the cities. Or rather, as I once heard said with reference to another very sad situation, as 'common as maggots on a corpse’.
So, with all this in mind, I return to my blog, which has become for me a kind of refuge, where I can sort out fact from fiction, do my own personal research, and present my findings. It is a place where I can defend the abused, support the victims. It is a place I can present their story, if only someone will listen.
Much of my interest in the Israeli Hareidi began when my son went to yeshiva in Israel in 2008. Only 19 years old, he was already a serious consumer of organic foods, and was reluctant to eat much else. I was terrified he would starve. That, coupled with the fact that he was diagnosed with mono as soon as he got off the plane, I embarked on a frantic search for organic produce in Israel, and specifically from sources that were willing to deliver to his yeshiva.
My search yielded organic farms that not only delivered to his yeshiva, but were involved in the hundreds of soup kitchens and free ‘restaurants’ sprinkled throughout Israel. Most of these places were visited by the Hareidi.
...in fact, I discovered that kollel families made up more than 60% of all people living below the poverty level in Israel....
When my second son went to Israel to a specifically Hareidi yeshiva in 2009, the picture of struggling Hareidi became even clearer, as my boys would report back to me the conditions of the families they usually were invited to on Shabbos …. Warm, welcoming, and many very, very poor …
In an epic report titled 'The Road Back From Utopia’ by Joel Rebibo (2001, on the web at http://www.azure.org.il/download/magazine/1329az_11_rebibo.pdf ) this extreme poverty and deprivation is disproportionately represented among yeshiva students and their families throughout Israel. It also reeks of religious persecution disguised as military protocol. I was horrified by the flagrant violations in basic human rights that Mr. Rebibo’s article revealed.
It actually turns out that the chronic unemployment among Israeli kollel students is a unique Israeli creation ... one that was actually forced upon them by the Israeli government itself.
From almost the beginning of the creation of the state, the Hareidi have had problems with the military; they refuse to enlist for religious reasons. Because of this, they have been denied the ability to receive work permits and to attend institutes of higher learning, such as college, university, or technical programs. The denial of these basic human rights has been going on for decades. Although this situation might be seen as Israel's attempt to punish Jews who simply don't serve in the military, it would most definitely be better classified as a unique type of Jew-on-Jew religious persecution.
While it could be argued that countries have a right to punish those refusing military service as how they see fit, this removal of the basic human right to work, make a living wage, or attend institutions of higher learning has overwhelmingly been targeted at the Hareidi to the exclusion of all others. In other words, they are the only group being treated this way. It has resulted in multi-generational poverty and a horrific contempt and hatred by the less religious Israeli Jews.
I remember in August reading about the venomous outcry against the Hareidi by the college students of Bar Ilan protesting the small increase in state funding that the Hareidi were scheduled to get, accusing the Hareidi of being parasitic on Israel in general and specifically depriving university students additional funding for school.
Few Israelis realize that the Hareidi’s financial dependence on the state, coupled with rampant unemployment, was the creation of their very own military policy, which mandates the removal of work and school permits for Jews in exchange for army exemption.
In a corruption of its original intent, the Hareidim who reject this mandatory military service based on religious observance, do not merely replace it with a life of dedicated torah study…. it is simultaneously replaced with the forced inertia and poverty of a people who have been legally denied the G-d given right to work and make a living or go to school ...
Although written in 2001, Mr. Rebibo's findings are still relevant today.... the following excerpts have been taken from his article:
"...In the early days of the state, a settlement was reached between David Ben-Gurion and the leadership of the Hareidi community, according to which yeshiva students would be exempt from army duty so long as they were engaged in full-time study. Students who declared that 'their Tora is their trade' (toratam umnutam) could continue to defer their enlistment indefinitely, but would be prohibited from engaging in activities other than Tora study - including teaching or even volunteer work - without first serving in the army...
".......What began as a group of approximately 400 students exempt from army duty at the founding of the state had grown by 1980 to around 10,000, and by 1999 had blossomed into a corps of over 30,000 men who were exempt from service, a number that continues to grow by about one thousand each year. These men, dedicated to full-time Tora study, are also bound to it by the threat of immediate conscription should they attempt to enter the workforce....
".....This fact alone constitutes one of the most significant differences between the American and Israeli communities: While an American Hareidi youth is free to pursue college or vocational training without the worry of being drafted, his Israeli counterpart must remain in yeshiva or face months or years in an army environment that is, in his view, hostile to his way of life. .... The threat of army service, in the words of Justice Tal, 'imprisons' Hareidim in their yeshivot....."
I live in a Jewish community in the United States. Both I and my children have been privileged over the years to know dedicated yeshiva men and their families. Often these men will leave their yeshiva after 4-6 years of continued study to pursue a college degree or open a business. Many of them earn a living or attend college or trade school simultaneously while in yeshiva full time. We had a car mechanic in Brooklyn who learned all day and did house calls in the evenings to maintain the cars of numerous clients. I also remember buying Jewish tapes from a friend's husband who sold Judaica from their home after learning all day in kollel. The income from these small businesses went a long way towards helping with family expenses.
...The innovation and creativity of these kollel students is remarkable. Yet as naturally innovative and resourceful as these kollel students are throughout the Diaspora, this added income cannot happen in Israel...it is against the law.....
Also in Mr. Rebibo's article is the following:
"...As poverty deepens and the dependent Hareidi population expands, the politicians of the religious parties press for more social spending that will benefit them …. fanning what Menachem Friedman terms the 'awesome hatred of Hareidim' among the general public......"
I discovered just how pervasive this awesome hatred of Hareidim was only yesterday on Facebook. It was my first real exposure, up close, to such a horrible, frightening thing…
To me, this is the most disturbing.....first to discover that the chronic unemployment and forced poverty of the Israeli Hareidim is a unique Israeli creation....and then to discover the intense hatred the Hareidi endure.
This is religious racism…in the raw … as well as the financial and educational deprivation and abuse that comes with it.
In terms of human rights, this scenario fits directly into the basic human rights issues now heralded throughout the world ... the right to a higher education, the right to financial independence, to make a living ….. the right to reject military service based on religious observance ….. it all sounds too familiar..…
Here in America, my religious Jewish community loves our yeshiva students.. thank G-d …..They are the pride and joy of our entire Jewish nation. The severe financial and educational deprivation, animosity and unbridled hatred in Israel towards our holy keepers of Torah is nothing short of heartbreaking.
Until next time...G-d bless you and yours with Torah and everything good.....
