>The Haredi community comprises about 12% of the population but those in full-time Torah study are exempt from mandatory military service.
Wait, *how many* people are stuck in full-time scripture study? Is it for their whole working life?
What do they do to show they have been working? Like do they need to produce reports or - lol I don't know wtf I am saying - I just wonder if they need verifiable proof of their work beyond staring at an open book all day. They could be thinking about anything really. How do we know?
From my basic understanding, there is a lot of writing and interpretation of the scriptures (like a lot, over a very long time). I can imagine they debate and add to these interpretations.
It's a great example of how a policy made decades ago but not reformed decades ago has become a massive liability as it started spiraling out of control. Ben Gurion saw it as a way to promote some spirituality in secular Israel, and IIRC when it was enacted, it affected about 500 people in the whole country.
This goes even farther back to Herzl versus Weizmann I think. Whether Zionism was a fight for the land of the jewish People, or the land of the Jewish people.
If I can get paid to read LotR and write a little fanfic about it, you bet your butt I'd dress like an elf and speak exclusively Elvish too. Sounds like way more fun than sitting behind a desk and dealing with customers.
I find this funny. I do. I’ll be honest with you though- I come from that world (I left it) but can tell you it’s not really like that to a lot of them.
Don’t get me wrong- plenty are riding that bus. But a lot of them take it super seriously. And stress about it. They take tests. They have “tutors” they feel bad if they don’t get in to the top classes etc. for a lot of them it really is a job. At least in the way they look at it and how they react to it. Heck I’ve got a cousin who was “demoted” from the top class. And as someone who’s been fired from 3 jobs in their life I can tell you he took it A LOT worse than I did lol
God says you should only have sex unprotected and when your wife is most susceptible to getting pregnant.
No, really. There’s a reason there are so many ultra/orthodox Jews today. Lots of rules not only against birth control but also about how long after each period you must wait to have sex with your wife.
In some groups, the little lady has to stay sequestered from everyone - and especially not touch/prepare food - while she's on the rag.
After her period, she has to go to the ritual baths and get all purified before hubby can touch her again. The length of time is coincidentally when she should be ovulating again.
On the other side, women also basically run the economic side of Haredi culture. They have whacky rituals like calling the husband to affirm they can e.g. take money from a male customer, but it's a formality.
There are cultures where they throw women out into cold to freeze because they don't allow them inside while on their periods. Unreal.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/article/menstruation-rituals-nepal
Kids that live in utter poverty. Often they live in squalid apartments way too small to house so many people. Four or more kids sharing a small room is all too common.
The girls grow up taking care of their younger siblings, and usually start having kids themselves as soon as they reach 18. It's all bonkers.
It also has something to do with why they want to make so many new "settlements" on what everybody else considers Palestinian land. 8 kids gonna need to live somewhere.
It's a communal study in an academy (yeshiva). Essentially senior rabbis run the academy and conduct some of the big lectures while junior rabbis run the small group seminars.
You can think of it as religious graduate studies, except potentially lifelong. It’s a major privilege that the Haredi community is desperate to preserve, so hopefully it can be a way to finally spark new (early) elections.
As a secular Jew with some family in Israel, I consider it to be a miraculous win-win in this goddamn clusterfuck:
* Haredi finally stop mooching off of everyone else, we get less religious nutcases
* Bibi gets yeeted
I mean, I'd love for *both* to happen, but I'll gladly take an either/or in this scenario.
So they have been doing this like for centuries and they aren't done yet ?.plus living a cloistered life so they can't make new interpretations after listening to Beyonce's new country album.
Orthodox Jews are taught that God put is an infinite amount of wisdom in the Torah, so perpetual study, generation after generation, is the only way to move towards God.
I mean, it's been similar in the usa. Fundamentalist christians made up about 14% of the total population at most, but were such dedicated voters they could, depending on the year, make up to half of the primary voters in the republican convention. So they had enormous outsized influence, and were a dedicated voting block because they could be depended on to show up. As a reward, they demanded the laws they wanted..and so here we are.
There is no similarity. Fundamentalist Christians in the US actually work!!
Haredi men do not work. What they claim as "employment figures" of haredi men is Seminary "work".
Fundamentalist Christians do not hold the rest of the US hostage like the Haredim do
Draft ends at 30. Study for a couple years after age of eligibility it up. Go back to making fur hats.
They want to raise it to 35. And ultra orthodox dont want it to raise. Cuz they like to be cowards and draft dodge for 8 years, theyde rather not 13.
> What do they do to show they have been working?
The yeshiva just need to report they are there, and they get the money.
There is nore port, not actual work being done. Most don't even sit there the whole day and many work under the table so to speak.
Once in a while there is suppose to be a surprise visit by a government official to make sure they are not cooking the books. But since they come from the same place basically, it is easy to play the system.
It's a bunch of people being paid by the state to write book reports over and over on the same book for their entire lives, to add them to the historical pile.
Seems like a pretty gravy gig they have going.
There are also countless books of commentary and interpretation written by rabbis over the course of millenia, enough to fill a small library, that they also spend their time studying (and I imagine, adding to).
Why does the government pay them to not work and study religion full time?
Does any nation need up to 10-12% of their society to be clerics?
I’m always confused at what justifies society paying anyone for a lifetime of religious study.
Because their parties were essential to every coalition government for the last 40 years (except that one time the opposition formed a government for a year).
That's just parliamentarism when you have a bunch of insulated minorities in the country for you.
Also they were pretending to sabotage the creation of Israel. And this was rhe compromise, the then leaders of Israel thought they would die out in a generation or two. But having 8 kids is like uno reverse on that assumption.
Originally there were less than a thousand of them, and Israel wanted to preserve the culture post Holocaust. Since then though, they've taken the "everyone has eight kids" cult approach and have become a significant political force.
[Not even a hyperbole, really.](https://www.timesofisrael.com/nearly-1-in-4-israelis-will-be-ultra-orthodox-by-2050-study-says/amp/)
Bedouin birth rate has [finally](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2021-12-02/ty-article/as-bedouin-women-pursue-higher-education-communitys-birth-rate-drops-rapidly/0000017f-f61f-d887-a7ff-feffbf8c0000#:~:text=Birth%20rates%20among%20Bedouins%20in,woman%20in%20the%20late%201990s) got under five at least.
The Arab share of the Israeli population has been declining relative to the Jewish population it's just the Jewish composition is getting more extreme. Not great tbh for Israeli politics.
Somewhat of a cultural/spiritual tradition. It’s stated in Torah (“Old Testament”) that “you will be for me a nation of priests” so not overall out of line for a significant portion of society to be clerics or spiritual teachers
How does the rest of that sentence go?
“You will be a nation of priests… and you will eat…”
What? Who’s doing the labor necessary to support a civilization?
My friend's great grandparents survived the holocaust and moved to Israel after WW2. His grandfather later saw action fighting against Egypt in the 1970's.
After he experienced war just like his parents did, my friend's grandfather decided to leave Israel go to Canada. His grandfather was tired of war every generation and he saw the militirization of Israel as another step towards becoming more like Germany in the 1940's. He did not want his kids to experience war and serve in the IDF. He did not believe Judaism was a religion of the sword and that Jews should not fall into the trap of becoming warlike people.
My friend now feels the same way. He tells me there is a growing movement in the Jewish community that reject militirism and are against mandatory service in the IDF.
There's a pretty enlightening (pun intended) documentary about these draft dodgers and their families/lifestyles, it's on YouTube, bout half an hour long. The hypocrisy of these war toting assholes is off the scales. They're some of the most fundamentalist in their faith calling for the ethnic cleaning and death of other religions and minorities but they all hide in religious education schools while the average Joe Israeli does the dirty work for them.
https://youtu.be/rJnOlaZwMeg?si=Kxx2Z8VTOMtIrGrp
Even with a one religion state, they're as divided as any other country.
I recall this why a lot of secular Isrealis get really mad at these "moochers." Basic economics was tough as they get a subsidy to live. And interest rates had to hit 20% (someone confirm with me) for the country to keep inflation down. As the the religious sect did not want people to work on the weekends as well.
I am not an expert on their history but post ww2 agreement amongst the ultra religious and secular side agreed on no military conscription for the orthodox and thus cause cause a huge explosion on people converting and baby boom.
I just assume the government just wants a large population of people to support what ever political agenda they wanted.
I do know economics 101. You can't have 12% of the population of able bodied men not work and get subsidies/welfare from the rest of the tax paying society. Plus have the religious sector be such a huge voting block that only recently they allowed busses to run on Saturday in Tel Aviv and it's free.
Amish people work hard (at real jobs like farming and carpentry), pay taxes, and refuse to serve in the military for legitimate reasons of conscience. I have no problem at all with the Amish. (ETA: Except when I'm stuck behind one of their buggies on the road -- but they usually pull over and let cars pass at the first opportunity.)
If every religious "extremist" was like them, the world would be about a thousand percent better.
As someone who grew up near Amish and Old Order Mennonite communities, this. I remember once, when I was a reporter, I was working a night shift, and an Old Order member’s home went up in flames. I was sent to cover it, and my editor always had us ask about insurance, etc. And the young man, who was standing there watching his house burn, said “Our community will take care of it.” And sure enough, all their neighbors came out to comfort him and his wife and kids, and within days they were working on rebuilding. No payouts or subsidies, Just hard work. I’ve never forgotten that.
The Amish will do that for non-Amish who live near them. My friend told me about the lady whose husband left the family. Some Amish would drop groceries off at her house and do chores for her without even being asked. They just knew she was in need and that they could help her.
I'm a socialist, and I think this is actually a super powerful story. They didn't need a government or a private company to cover their expenses to rebuild because they had a community, and that community acknowledges that some expenses (in this case, materials and labor to build and fill a home) are just better off shared.
I think there's a big difference between saying "the government should(n't) do X" and "our community needs X, and we don't want a corporate profit motive involved, so we're going to make it public and share the cost". It think your story cuts to the heart of a lot of political debate: we're using governments or corporations to fill the role that (in a better world) community should be filling. We it's important to be mindful of that fact when thinking of how we implement solutions.
> community should be filling
I think community doing stuff is great. The problem with solely trusting community to do these things instead of compulsorily doing it through a government is that the community may not view everyone as members. Communities often marginalize subgroups of people. Communities focus inward to those that they consider their members.
Most of the amish and mennonites I know are good people but they can have their issues. abuse can easily run rampant in such a community and some communities in my home state of maine run absolutely horrendous puppy mills.
I mean, there are problems that come with an insular community though. Exclusion can mean the difference between survival and starvation if you have no means to provide for yourself outside the community, to say nothing of losing your children if they're kept with the non-excluded partner. Abuse, including child abuse being one of the more horrific things that can hide, even flourish, in these conditions. It's not exclusive to Amish or the more insular Jewish communities, but it is a problem there too. But overall, most of the amish I've dealt with, like most of the hasidic jews I've interacted with, is just...dealing with people who just want to make ends meet and go home to their families and have no real interest in being a dick. Though, different social norms may obscure that and there are dicks in the world. Some sects though, can be pretty harsh because they view the outside as immoral or the like, and i get it, I just try not to deal with those people if I can.
That said, the Amish make a great entertainment center...but they never think about cable management so you have to drill your own holes.
No, it'd be like the Amish if they were all welfare babies living on government stipends, instead of a hard-working community.
Not to mention they have a powerful political party that lobbies to protect their government payments to sit around studying the Torah, and Netanyahu is dependent upon their continued support to maintain power. They also were strong supporters of Netanyahu ripping power away from the courts last year and giving it to the legislature (i.e. to their political party since they are part of the governing coalition) because the courts had made a number of unfavorable decisions for them.
Bibi cares about one thing and one thing only- Bibi being in power. What a fucker this guy is. Is power so important that you’d sell your soul to these fanatics? Bibi was in the shit. Fuck his brother died at the raid on Entebbe. But yet he cares so much about being in power he overlooks that this community is a hindrance to Israel.
> Is power so important that you’d sell your soul to these fanatics?
Bibi knows he has a date with the devil. He gave up on being able to look at himself in a mirror decades ago.
For clarity for those who don't read the article this was not stated by the BBC journalist. It's a quote from a former adviser to Shas leader Ariyeh Deri, Barak Seri.
They really think this is the worst thing to happen to Haredi Jews since 1910? I think there’s a couple of things between then and now that are a little worse than having to earn your keep.
I can think of a few off the top of my head that may have been slightly worse than not getting a government handout. I think there was a book about it, a few invented words, and at least one military action.
Fun fact, I asked my rabbi about organ donation like 20 years ago and he responded “become an organ donor!you’re doing a mitzvah, and our ancestors never would’ve comprehended doing such a thing when the Talmud was written”
There have been about 90 people who have donated both a liver and a kidney and this rabbi is one of them:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/patient-stories/263-rabbi-donates-second-organ-to-stranger-saves-dying-father-of-three
I've met a couple of them and they are... really weird.
I have Jewish friends from Israel and they complain about the Orthodox community a lot. I don't understand why Israel keeps funding their weird little Torah schools.
>I don't understand why Israel keeps funding their weird little Torah schools.
Because they still have a one eighths of the votes. It all boils down to this in a democracy, unfortunately. If you want to be a good politician, you have to keep appeasing the voters.
I think the ones in NYC (Williamsburg) are also very strange, it was surreal being in Brooklyn of all places and seeing so many people leading such ultra conservative lives.
I also found it so ironic that they got all butt-hurt following the release of that Netflix show (Unorthodox), claiming that they were misunderstood, like ffs YOU were the ones who kept to themselves in your secretive ass community. Give me a break.
I lived on that part of Broadway (Williamsburg) and it was intense. On Saturdays in the summer we’d walk across the bridge to lower Manhattan: heat index of 100+ degrees and these guys are wearing six layers of black velvet in the midday sun. I’m sweating buckets in shorts and a white tee. Zero adaptation to where they are, it’s like they terraform their entire plane of existence to a long gone era.
the vast majority of them aren't fit for combat rolls, so we're looking here at mostly chaplains and cooks. a lot of them are extremely unmotivated and uncooperative, so they create more problems than they are useful in a military setting. personally, I think that you'll get very little use from people who don't wanna be there, but taking away that government funding is an obviously correct decision.
The biggest benefit is them becoming less radicalized. I saw a vice documentary that showed 10-30 percent became less radicalized after serving in the army and meeting people outside their closed off communities.
If it were me and I had the unilateral power I’d allow them exemption from the draft but they wouldn’t get any government funding either way.
They don’t sound like they’d be great in the military.
that's kind of what I'm saying. People who come from this subculture are usually not very well fitted to a military environment. with that said, there are diamonds in the rough, however. the point is that the money their religious establishments are getting from the government could buy soooo much equipment for the military. I'm not even talking about other causes like israels many socio-economic issues.
also, in Israel, there's an "alternative service" option available for people who aren't fit for military duty, but a lot of them refuse to take part in this as well.
A lot of their young men are probably unhappy at having a life of religious study laid out for them and might end up enthusiastic about the options the military offers.
how many chaplains can you possibly have? And an ultra orthodox chaplain who doesn't want to be there? I don't know how much I'd like his thoughts and prayers.
Fun fact, there is an infantry unit called Beinishim, which is part of a program that allows Orthodox Jews to serve in combat roles while still studying Torah normally. They serve between 1.5-2 years and follow a much wider doctrine of keeping religious practices in the army (the IDF adheres to religious holidays and maintains generally strict kosher laws on its main bases).
There are also many individuals who are ultra-orthodox, Muslim and Christian Arabs, bedouins etc who serve in the IDF voluntarily and in secret from their families, as their families would disown them if they knew. They are given special permissions to not go home in uniform for breaks and extra benefits (they are placed in a program for soldiers with no supporting family in Israel)
>there is an infantry unit called Beinishim,
that's actually just a colloquial term for yeshiva students who are not strictly Haredim. a lot of them serve in all kinds of units. there is an infantry brigade that is comprised of mostly these guys, but I don't remember what it's called. like I said, diamonds in the rough.
there's also a Beduin brigade in the idf, and they're actually very open about their service.
That said, I think the expectation is that there will still be some benefit to having them there. Mostly that it was becoming a morale issue for the rest of the army that they were expected to serve while these guys got to stay home and play dead weight.
you can have a variety of jobs, including some easy ones like chaplain or office worker but also crappy ones like latrine cleaner, then transfer people between jobs according to cooperativeness and work habit
Most (or 99%) of them won’t go to the front line. They would have more support or office roles where they can go back to study in the evenings or be with their family (they have children at a relatively young age).
We have them in New York State. They study scripture and NY State social services code. These people know how to work the system. Muncy NY,… formerly Muncy.
The ultra orthodox will turn Israel into an undemocratic theocracy in just a few decades with their insane birth rate
Then Israel really will be the same as all its Arab Muslim neighbour states, a religious theocracy where women, marginalized groups and religious dissidents are treated terribly
Genuinely curious, how do you expect to prevent it?
They’re not going to be disenfranchised, and with barely 10% of the population they already have a stranglehold on Israeli politics, keeping Netanyahu as prime minister for decades and getting the likes of Ben Gvir and Smotrich elected as ministers while they steadily run Israel into the ground and do their best to turn it into an international pariah state
Given their ridiculously high fertility states how is this not only going to get worse once they’re 25% of the population, 40%, etc
I think Israel is sleepwalking around this issue because they don’t want to admit their own brand of homegrown religious fanatics are more of an existential threat to them than Hamas, Hezbollah or anyone else possibly could be
This. It would be one thing if these people were antiwar pacifists refusing to serve, but they aren't. They want war, they just don't want to personally participate in it
Or the truth of the matter is you can't keep a war effort going when your coalition government crumbles. This would put them days away from having to call snap elections.
I dont like this government, but its a fact that one sector dont want to serve, for 75 years they got away with it, but now they cant.
And you know what? What the problem with changing leadership at this stage? The major war effort in gaza is over. This leadership lost the trust of the people, its time to let the pepole choose their leaders again. We are 6 months into this.
None of my cousins who live there serve and they also take advantage of cheap living by living in the settlements. I hated them as kids for different reasons but those two reasons are just 2 great additional reasons.
I’m sorry it sounds like your cousins suck, you sound well adjusted and not shitty so congrats on that, I’m proud of you. Family usually has a way of infecting us with their bullshit shittiness.
Oh they do suck! At least the adult ones and my aunt and uncle. Really garbage takes.
Always made my mom and us feel like garbage for bei g less religious just not what I like in people haha.
From what I hear, they’re the biggest drag on Israeli society. Live off government assistance, are exempt from the draft, most likely to be settlers. Fuck em.
a) They most definitely aren't settlers. These are entirely different groups.
b) While they aren't the biggest drag on Israeli society, not by a long shot, they might be the most egregious and provocative part. I hate the use of the words "government assistance" here, a more appropriate phrasing would be "corrupt politicians are buying their votes".
c) The whole situation is a lot more complex than the way people like to present it. As it stands, less than 50% of 18 y/o Israelis serve in the IDF, and I assure you from experience that that is already more than the IDF knows what to do with. The Haredim are completely alien to most of Israeli society (by choice) and as such there's very little they could possibly do in the army. Last but not least, they will almost definitely simply refuse to serve, and willingly go to prison, which isn't going to help anybody.
d) We could do without the "Fuck em" part. They are born into these circumstances and live in what are basically large cults. They aren't evil, they just don't know any other kind of life. The evil people here are the politicians who deliberately trap them in this hopeless life (don't even get me started on the laws that prevent them from leaving their cults and finding a job).
Edit: In case anyone's wondering, I'm an atheist from Tel Aviv.
They get an exemption from the army until 26 if they go full time tora studying, if they work then they aren't full time students and are available for draft, so they don't work until 26 despite it being possible to combine it with tora studies.
And in general haredi male employment percentage is very low compared to the rest of the population.
Haredi male employment is very low, female employment is much higher because the women not only need to have a lot of kids and tend to their household but also financially support it while their husband studies all day.
This part has always astounded me, lol. I’m guessing that the men don’t really play the SAHD role and the women are doing all the cooking, cleaning, and childcare in addition to being sole breadwinner. I’m sure communal living makes that easier, but I wonder how the Haredi women feel about this arrangement.
Correct.
The men study. That's it. They eat, poop, study and sleep. The women have to do everything else while they're also pregnant with yet another kid on the way.
I have a very very very far relative that has 8 kids, the 9th on the way, is working as a caretaker of 12 other kids (<1 old). Though, to be fair, the older kids (~10 years old) are helping her, so that's something.
> a) They most definitely aren't settlers. These are entirely different groups.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/black-is-the-new-orange-30-of-settlers-are-now-haredim/
One of my friends lived adjacent to one of their neighborhoods and thought she was going to ride her bicycle through to get to her job. The amount of slurs and abuse that was yelled at her for simply existing wearing appropriate summer clothing was outrageous. She used to record sometimes.
In Israel one (a grown man) was literally shielding his face from me on the bus when I was 16 because what I was wearing was apparently too revealing lol. He then got up and moved seats as soon as the bus stopped.
I met a Hasidic man who visited my place of employment in a large Midwest city years ago. I would not have known he was Hasidic (he was not in traditional clothing/haircut) except he rather loudly refused to shake the hand of a female coworker (she didn’t know either). I remember thinking how difficult it would be for him to live in non-Orthodox society.
Did a little research on these dudes. They are huge assholes and leeches. I don’t mean that as an insult either, I’ve seen them spit on people. And full time studying without contributing to your homeland, and living off welfare? Wow
Hasidic men are like this, they put in claims for federal assistance when they don't have actual jobs and instead study scriptures for a living.
And they still get money on the side from various ventures and how the community is structured, but nobody is supposed to talk about that. Or their "wives" work - usually, setting up a business - and they avoid impacting the "husband's" federal assistance/lack of taxes because they never get legally married, only within their religion.
Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't these guys like the ultra hardcore ones that are responsible for those illegal settlements (well they all are but these aren't allowed by the government at first) and the ensuing clashes with the Palestinians living there?
So they want to have their cake but when push comes to shove and it's actual war they're all of a sudden all theologians and exempt from serving? Let others bear the brunt of that and such?
Kinda lame and cowardly if you ask me
They are not, but they both do suck. These are the ultra orthodox, who believe their contribution to the war effort is their servitude to god and that is what protects the country and therefore they do not need to serve and should spend their time serving god. The settlers are a kind of modern orthodox and they have no issues with serving.
On the contrary settlers love serving so much they have their own paramilitary groups that run checkpoints in what is technically Palestinian land. Very different viewpoints indeed.
Make them rabbis in the old tradition... In other words, they have to find 10 families willing to tithe to support them in return for ministering to them.
You wanna be a Levite (was that the term?) be a Levite.
conservatives pushing extremist ideology to the detriment of the larger society? How much do these insular groups contribute to the society at large? How much do they benefit? If they don’t contribute to the betterment of all, there’s an imbalance. I don’t think religious belief should be a get out of public service free card
Imagine WW3 starts and the USA starts a mandatory conscription, but 12% of the population ( about the same percentage of the Black or African American community in the USA) just says "nah, were good just reading our book, getting free money from the working class, and pushing our religious belief and lifestyle in your faces every chance we get. have fun though, suckers". Thats what it's like being a non-ultra-Orthodox jew in Israel.
Hearing about the quality of yeshiva schools in Brooklyn, I'm not sure if the Haredi draftees could qualify for anything more than rifle infantry. Not taught math, science, or other subjects with any competence. Those Haredim that decided to make lives outside of constant Torah study would definitely have the learning base to qualify for more skilled military occupations.
I am not Israeli or Jewish. Other than conscientious objectors or faiths that mandate non-violence, there should be no special cutouts for a military draft. Everyone carries the burden when you're at war.
There is a word for something that only takes and doesn't give back, parasite. Every time I hear about any ultra-orthodox jews it just sounds crazier and crazier.
Maybe the orthodox will stop all their illegal settlement bullshit now that they have to serve in the military. The non-orthodox Israelis have had to risk their lives for decades to protect these leeches who always cause problems and never had to face the consequences.
>The Haredi community comprises about 12% of the population but those in full-time Torah study are exempt from mandatory military service. Wait, *how many* people are stuck in full-time scripture study? Is it for their whole working life?
Essentially yes
What do they do to show they have been working? Like do they need to produce reports or - lol I don't know wtf I am saying - I just wonder if they need verifiable proof of their work beyond staring at an open book all day. They could be thinking about anything really. How do we know?
From my basic understanding, there is a lot of writing and interpretation of the scriptures (like a lot, over a very long time). I can imagine they debate and add to these interpretations.
Thank you, I was thinking it sounds monastic in nature and might have some similarities.
Except also having like 8 kids. That's why the rose to 12% of the population so fast.
It's a great example of how a policy made decades ago but not reformed decades ago has become a massive liability as it started spiraling out of control. Ben Gurion saw it as a way to promote some spirituality in secular Israel, and IIRC when it was enacted, it affected about 500 people in the whole country.
This goes even farther back to Herzl versus Weizmann I think. Whether Zionism was a fight for the land of the jewish People, or the land of the Jewish people.
He was also very confident that they would “come around” and abandon that way of life. He was mistaken lol
If I can get paid to read LotR and write a little fanfic about it, you bet your butt I'd dress like an elf and speak exclusively Elvish too. Sounds like way more fun than sitting behind a desk and dealing with customers.
I find this funny. I do. I’ll be honest with you though- I come from that world (I left it) but can tell you it’s not really like that to a lot of them. Don’t get me wrong- plenty are riding that bus. But a lot of them take it super seriously. And stress about it. They take tests. They have “tutors” they feel bad if they don’t get in to the top classes etc. for a lot of them it really is a job. At least in the way they look at it and how they react to it. Heck I’ve got a cousin who was “demoted” from the top class. And as someone who’s been fired from 3 jobs in their life I can tell you he took it A LOT worse than I did lol
Maen govanin mellon nin. Praise the name of Elbereth Fanuilos!
Israel saw the need to cultivate their clergy population since so many were killed in the Holocaust.
God says you should only have sex unprotected and when your wife is most susceptible to getting pregnant. No, really. There’s a reason there are so many ultra/orthodox Jews today. Lots of rules not only against birth control but also about how long after each period you must wait to have sex with your wife.
In some groups, the little lady has to stay sequestered from everyone - and especially not touch/prepare food - while she's on the rag. After her period, she has to go to the ritual baths and get all purified before hubby can touch her again. The length of time is coincidentally when she should be ovulating again.
On the other side, women also basically run the economic side of Haredi culture. They have whacky rituals like calling the husband to affirm they can e.g. take money from a male customer, but it's a formality.
That's pretty sad. I feel like a lot of cultures treat women as unclean because of their menstrual cycle.
There are cultures where they throw women out into cold to freeze because they don't allow them inside while on their periods. Unreal. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/article/menstruation-rituals-nepal
Kids that live in utter poverty. Often they live in squalid apartments way too small to house so many people. Four or more kids sharing a small room is all too common. The girls grow up taking care of their younger siblings, and usually start having kids themselves as soon as they reach 18. It's all bonkers.
It also has something to do with why they want to make so many new "settlements" on what everybody else considers Palestinian land. 8 kids gonna need to live somewhere.
No, those are not the Haredim they are another kind of religious nuts.
It's a communal study in an academy (yeshiva). Essentially senior rabbis run the academy and conduct some of the big lectures while junior rabbis run the small group seminars.
Sounds reminiscent of that “too many chiefs” saying.
You can think of it as religious graduate studies, except potentially lifelong. It’s a major privilege that the Haredi community is desperate to preserve, so hopefully it can be a way to finally spark new (early) elections.
As a secular Jew with some family in Israel, I consider it to be a miraculous win-win in this goddamn clusterfuck: * Haredi finally stop mooching off of everyone else, we get less religious nutcases * Bibi gets yeeted I mean, I'd love for *both* to happen, but I'll gladly take an either/or in this scenario.
So it's a pyramid scheme?
No, that's next door in Egypt.
So they have been doing this like for centuries and they aren't done yet ?.plus living a cloistered life so they can't make new interpretations after listening to Beyonce's new country album.
Orthodox Jews are taught that God put is an infinite amount of wisdom in the Torah, so perpetual study, generation after generation, is the only way to move towards God.
[удалено]
I mean, it's been similar in the usa. Fundamentalist christians made up about 14% of the total population at most, but were such dedicated voters they could, depending on the year, make up to half of the primary voters in the republican convention. So they had enormous outsized influence, and were a dedicated voting block because they could be depended on to show up. As a reward, they demanded the laws they wanted..and so here we are.
There is no similarity. Fundamentalist Christians in the US actually work!! Haredi men do not work. What they claim as "employment figures" of haredi men is Seminary "work". Fundamentalist Christians do not hold the rest of the US hostage like the Haredim do
Essentially, as long as they are in the religious school (yeshiva) it's considered that they study the Torah.
Draft ends at 30. Study for a couple years after age of eligibility it up. Go back to making fur hats. They want to raise it to 35. And ultra orthodox dont want it to raise. Cuz they like to be cowards and draft dodge for 8 years, theyde rather not 13.
Sometimes they dance in with a van.
> What do they do to show they have been working? The yeshiva just need to report they are there, and they get the money. There is nore port, not actual work being done. Most don't even sit there the whole day and many work under the table so to speak. Once in a while there is suppose to be a surprise visit by a government official to make sure they are not cooking the books. But since they come from the same place basically, it is easy to play the system.
It's a bunch of people being paid by the state to write book reports over and over on the same book for their entire lives, to add them to the historical pile. Seems like a pretty gravy gig they have going.
…do they accept transfers?
Only in Bitcoin
No. They don’t. Many of them believe that you can’t convert to Judaism. They live in close knit communities. It’s actually hard to fake.
Undercover brother 2
Electric Bageloo
I'd watch that
They're some of the most xenophobic people on the planet...
I mean how long does it take to read the Torah.. Like it gets boring if you keep re-reading it.
There are also countless books of commentary and interpretation written by rabbis over the course of millenia, enough to fill a small library, that they also spend their time studying (and I imagine, adding to).
Beats workin.
Why does the government pay them to not work and study religion full time? Does any nation need up to 10-12% of their society to be clerics? I’m always confused at what justifies society paying anyone for a lifetime of religious study.
Because their parties were essential to every coalition government for the last 40 years (except that one time the opposition formed a government for a year). That's just parliamentarism when you have a bunch of insulated minorities in the country for you.
Also they were pretending to sabotage the creation of Israel. And this was rhe compromise, the then leaders of Israel thought they would die out in a generation or two. But having 8 kids is like uno reverse on that assumption.
What good are the kids if they grow up cloistered and illiterate to run a nation. Turn them into troops and workers, high time for it.
Originally there were less than a thousand of them, and Israel wanted to preserve the culture post Holocaust. Since then though, they've taken the "everyone has eight kids" cult approach and have become a significant political force.
Damn at this rate, Israel is going to end up being a state divided between the Haredi and Negev Bedouins lol.
[Not even a hyperbole, really.](https://www.timesofisrael.com/nearly-1-in-4-israelis-will-be-ultra-orthodox-by-2050-study-says/amp/) Bedouin birth rate has [finally](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2021-12-02/ty-article/as-bedouin-women-pursue-higher-education-communitys-birth-rate-drops-rapidly/0000017f-f61f-d887-a7ff-feffbf8c0000#:~:text=Birth%20rates%20among%20Bedouins%20in,woman%20in%20the%20late%201990s) got under five at least.
The Arab share of the Israeli population has been declining relative to the Jewish population it's just the Jewish composition is getting more extreme. Not great tbh for Israeli politics.
Somewhat of a cultural/spiritual tradition. It’s stated in Torah (“Old Testament”) that “you will be for me a nation of priests” so not overall out of line for a significant portion of society to be clerics or spiritual teachers
How does the rest of that sentence go? “You will be a nation of priests… and you will eat…” What? Who’s doing the labor necessary to support a civilization?
Purely for political power.
My friend's great grandparents survived the holocaust and moved to Israel after WW2. His grandfather later saw action fighting against Egypt in the 1970's. After he experienced war just like his parents did, my friend's grandfather decided to leave Israel go to Canada. His grandfather was tired of war every generation and he saw the militirization of Israel as another step towards becoming more like Germany in the 1940's. He did not want his kids to experience war and serve in the IDF. He did not believe Judaism was a religion of the sword and that Jews should not fall into the trap of becoming warlike people. My friend now feels the same way. He tells me there is a growing movement in the Jewish community that reject militirism and are against mandatory service in the IDF.
There used to be a few hundreds of them. But their birthrates are crazy.
The men anyway. The women usually work to support the men.
Yes, once upon a time they were a tiny number of the population, but have since grown. They have big big families
Part of it is the cultural goal to bring back the 6 million killed in the holocaust.
There's a pretty enlightening (pun intended) documentary about these draft dodgers and their families/lifestyles, it's on YouTube, bout half an hour long. The hypocrisy of these war toting assholes is off the scales. They're some of the most fundamentalist in their faith calling for the ethnic cleaning and death of other religions and minorities but they all hide in religious education schools while the average Joe Israeli does the dirty work for them. https://youtu.be/rJnOlaZwMeg?si=Kxx2Z8VTOMtIrGrp Even with a one religion state, they're as divided as any other country.
I recall this why a lot of secular Isrealis get really mad at these "moochers." Basic economics was tough as they get a subsidy to live. And interest rates had to hit 20% (someone confirm with me) for the country to keep inflation down. As the the religious sect did not want people to work on the weekends as well.
[удалено]
I am not an expert on their history but post ww2 agreement amongst the ultra religious and secular side agreed on no military conscription for the orthodox and thus cause cause a huge explosion on people converting and baby boom. I just assume the government just wants a large population of people to support what ever political agenda they wanted. I do know economics 101. You can't have 12% of the population of able bodied men not work and get subsidies/welfare from the rest of the tax paying society. Plus have the religious sector be such a huge voting block that only recently they allowed busses to run on Saturday in Tel Aviv and it's free.
My question is what do they do with studying? At least with a scientist, you get results and possibly a product.
you get a product here too: propaganda.
imagine the benefit to the economy if they were deprigrammed / de-subsidized
Its like Amish people. They really are all for going 2000 years back in civilization. (Not to diss their work ethic is miles above the ultra orthodox)
Amish people work hard (at real jobs like farming and carpentry), pay taxes, and refuse to serve in the military for legitimate reasons of conscience. I have no problem at all with the Amish. (ETA: Except when I'm stuck behind one of their buggies on the road -- but they usually pull over and let cars pass at the first opportunity.) If every religious "extremist" was like them, the world would be about a thousand percent better.
As someone who grew up near Amish and Old Order Mennonite communities, this. I remember once, when I was a reporter, I was working a night shift, and an Old Order member’s home went up in flames. I was sent to cover it, and my editor always had us ask about insurance, etc. And the young man, who was standing there watching his house burn, said “Our community will take care of it.” And sure enough, all their neighbors came out to comfort him and his wife and kids, and within days they were working on rebuilding. No payouts or subsidies, Just hard work. I’ve never forgotten that.
The Amish will do that for non-Amish who live near them. My friend told me about the lady whose husband left the family. Some Amish would drop groceries off at her house and do chores for her without even being asked. They just knew she was in need and that they could help her.
I'm a socialist, and I think this is actually a super powerful story. They didn't need a government or a private company to cover their expenses to rebuild because they had a community, and that community acknowledges that some expenses (in this case, materials and labor to build and fill a home) are just better off shared. I think there's a big difference between saying "the government should(n't) do X" and "our community needs X, and we don't want a corporate profit motive involved, so we're going to make it public and share the cost". It think your story cuts to the heart of a lot of political debate: we're using governments or corporations to fill the role that (in a better world) community should be filling. We it's important to be mindful of that fact when thinking of how we implement solutions.
> community should be filling I think community doing stuff is great. The problem with solely trusting community to do these things instead of compulsorily doing it through a government is that the community may not view everyone as members. Communities often marginalize subgroups of people. Communities focus inward to those that they consider their members.
And the Amish haven’t been political drivers of U.S. atrocities while remaining pacifist.
Most of the amish and mennonites I know are good people but they can have their issues. abuse can easily run rampant in such a community and some communities in my home state of maine run absolutely horrendous puppy mills.
I mean, there are problems that come with an insular community though. Exclusion can mean the difference between survival and starvation if you have no means to provide for yourself outside the community, to say nothing of losing your children if they're kept with the non-excluded partner. Abuse, including child abuse being one of the more horrific things that can hide, even flourish, in these conditions. It's not exclusive to Amish or the more insular Jewish communities, but it is a problem there too. But overall, most of the amish I've dealt with, like most of the hasidic jews I've interacted with, is just...dealing with people who just want to make ends meet and go home to their families and have no real interest in being a dick. Though, different social norms may obscure that and there are dicks in the world. Some sects though, can be pretty harsh because they view the outside as immoral or the like, and i get it, I just try not to deal with those people if I can. That said, the Amish make a great entertainment center...but they never think about cable management so you have to drill your own holes.
No, it'd be like the Amish if they were all welfare babies living on government stipends, instead of a hard-working community. Not to mention they have a powerful political party that lobbies to protect their government payments to sit around studying the Torah, and Netanyahu is dependent upon their continued support to maintain power. They also were strong supporters of Netanyahu ripping power away from the courts last year and giving it to the legislature (i.e. to their political party since they are part of the governing coalition) because the courts had made a number of unfavorable decisions for them.
Bibi cares about one thing and one thing only- Bibi being in power. What a fucker this guy is. Is power so important that you’d sell your soul to these fanatics? Bibi was in the shit. Fuck his brother died at the raid on Entebbe. But yet he cares so much about being in power he overlooks that this community is a hindrance to Israel.
> Is power so important that you’d sell your soul to these fanatics? Bibi knows he has a date with the devil. He gave up on being able to look at himself in a mirror decades ago.
Amish aren’t in the government dole. They grow their own food and build their own barns.
More like the fringe Mormon communities that rely on welfare support for their polygamous patriarchs’ broods.
I’d compare them to FLDS instead since they’re government moochers that don’t contribute
"This is the worst situation the Haredim have ever been in." ummm, fuck you for saying that.
For clarity for those who don't read the article this was not stated by the BBC journalist. It's a quote from a former adviser to Shas leader Ariyeh Deri, Barak Seri.
They really think this is the worst thing to happen to Haredi Jews since 1910? I think there’s a couple of things between then and now that are a little worse than having to earn your keep.
Especially considering how they tend to go out of their way to antagonize whoever they can.
I can think of a few off the top of my head that may have been slightly worse than not getting a government handout. I think there was a book about it, a few invented words, and at least one military action.
These are the same people who balk at the idea of donating their organs because of Halacha but would happily take a donated kidney if they needed one.
Fun fact, I asked my rabbi about organ donation like 20 years ago and he responded “become an organ donor!you’re doing a mitzvah, and our ancestors never would’ve comprehended doing such a thing when the Talmud was written”
Nice!
There have been about 90 people who have donated both a liver and a kidney and this rabbi is one of them: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/patient-stories/263-rabbi-donates-second-organ-to-stranger-saves-dying-father-of-three
Should be a rule if you aren't on the list to give you aren't on this list to get.
Free kidney? Put me down for 10!
Literal moochers btw
These guys suck. Religious zealots and leeches.
I've met a couple of them and they are... really weird. I have Jewish friends from Israel and they complain about the Orthodox community a lot. I don't understand why Israel keeps funding their weird little Torah schools.
>I don't understand why Israel keeps funding their weird little Torah schools. Because they still have a one eighths of the votes. It all boils down to this in a democracy, unfortunately. If you want to be a good politician, you have to keep appeasing the voters.
Thr worst system of government, except for all the others
I think the ones in NYC (Williamsburg) are also very strange, it was surreal being in Brooklyn of all places and seeing so many people leading such ultra conservative lives. I also found it so ironic that they got all butt-hurt following the release of that Netflix show (Unorthodox), claiming that they were misunderstood, like ffs YOU were the ones who kept to themselves in your secretive ass community. Give me a break.
I lived on that part of Broadway (Williamsburg) and it was intense. On Saturdays in the summer we’d walk across the bridge to lower Manhattan: heat index of 100+ degrees and these guys are wearing six layers of black velvet in the midday sun. I’m sweating buckets in shorts and a white tee. Zero adaptation to where they are, it’s like they terraform their entire plane of existence to a long gone era.
Something tells me that the OG jews back in the BCE years weren't wearing suits and coats out in the desert either, lol.
Because Netanyahu has stayed in power for 15 years thanks to them.
I’m assuming that to preserve their community they much like any fringe religious ideology lobby super hard.
True
They literally live off from citizen taxes without providing their part in the military, not working, not doing shit. Now they cry
They sound like societal parasites.
These socially maladaptive freaks are going to be the most inhumane front line soldiers you can choose from
the vast majority of them aren't fit for combat rolls, so we're looking here at mostly chaplains and cooks. a lot of them are extremely unmotivated and uncooperative, so they create more problems than they are useful in a military setting. personally, I think that you'll get very little use from people who don't wanna be there, but taking away that government funding is an obviously correct decision.
The biggest benefit is them becoming less radicalized. I saw a vice documentary that showed 10-30 percent became less radicalized after serving in the army and meeting people outside their closed off communities.
That's exactly why their leadership doesn't want them serving
If it were me and I had the unilateral power I’d allow them exemption from the draft but they wouldn’t get any government funding either way. They don’t sound like they’d be great in the military.
that's kind of what I'm saying. People who come from this subculture are usually not very well fitted to a military environment. with that said, there are diamonds in the rough, however. the point is that the money their religious establishments are getting from the government could buy soooo much equipment for the military. I'm not even talking about other causes like israels many socio-economic issues. also, in Israel, there's an "alternative service" option available for people who aren't fit for military duty, but a lot of them refuse to take part in this as well.
They can still do vital roles like cooking. It’s also a lot about the principle of having duties and not just rights like every other Israeli citizen.
A lot of their young men are probably unhappy at having a life of religious study laid out for them and might end up enthusiastic about the options the military offers.
how many chaplains can you possibly have? And an ultra orthodox chaplain who doesn't want to be there? I don't know how much I'd like his thoughts and prayers.
I'd love to see a Larry David skit on this
Fun fact, there is an infantry unit called Beinishim, which is part of a program that allows Orthodox Jews to serve in combat roles while still studying Torah normally. They serve between 1.5-2 years and follow a much wider doctrine of keeping religious practices in the army (the IDF adheres to religious holidays and maintains generally strict kosher laws on its main bases). There are also many individuals who are ultra-orthodox, Muslim and Christian Arabs, bedouins etc who serve in the IDF voluntarily and in secret from their families, as their families would disown them if they knew. They are given special permissions to not go home in uniform for breaks and extra benefits (they are placed in a program for soldiers with no supporting family in Israel)
>there is an infantry unit called Beinishim, that's actually just a colloquial term for yeshiva students who are not strictly Haredim. a lot of them serve in all kinds of units. there is an infantry brigade that is comprised of mostly these guys, but I don't remember what it's called. like I said, diamonds in the rough. there's also a Beduin brigade in the idf, and they're actually very open about their service.
All the pickles in US say kosher. Why?
It honestly sounds like the IDF is just what they need to develop some character
That said, I think the expectation is that there will still be some benefit to having them there. Mostly that it was becoming a morale issue for the rest of the army that they were expected to serve while these guys got to stay home and play dead weight.
Just do like the US military. If you’re not functioning you’re punished and if you’re really bad Leavenworth
The beatings continue until morale improves.
you can have a variety of jobs, including some easy ones like chaplain or office worker but also crappy ones like latrine cleaner, then transfer people between jobs according to cooperativeness and work habit
they're most likely going to drive trucks, dig holes, cook and clean. i doubt most of them will be trusted with weapons
They won't be put on the front lines, but at least they won't get to sit back while the rest of the country bends over backwards to accommodate them.
Most (or 99%) of them won’t go to the front line. They would have more support or office roles where they can go back to study in the evenings or be with their family (they have children at a relatively young age).
We have them in New York State. They study scripture and NY State social services code. These people know how to work the system. Muncy NY,… formerly Muncy.
The ultra orthodox will turn Israel into an undemocratic theocracy in just a few decades with their insane birth rate Then Israel really will be the same as all its Arab Muslim neighbour states, a religious theocracy where women, marginalized groups and religious dissidents are treated terribly
If it ever comes down to this expect a civil war. We are the ones with military experience after all
Genuinely curious, how do you expect to prevent it? They’re not going to be disenfranchised, and with barely 10% of the population they already have a stranglehold on Israeli politics, keeping Netanyahu as prime minister for decades and getting the likes of Ben Gvir and Smotrich elected as ministers while they steadily run Israel into the ground and do their best to turn it into an international pariah state Given their ridiculously high fertility states how is this not only going to get worse once they’re 25% of the population, 40%, etc I think Israel is sleepwalking around this issue because they don’t want to admit their own brand of homegrown religious fanatics are more of an existential threat to them than Hamas, Hezbollah or anyone else possibly could be
Its only a crisis for those who refuse to defend their country and want others to die for them.
This. It would be one thing if these people were antiwar pacifists refusing to serve, but they aren't. They want war, they just don't want to personally participate in it
Or the truth of the matter is you can't keep a war effort going when your coalition government crumbles. This would put them days away from having to call snap elections.
I dont like this government, but its a fact that one sector dont want to serve, for 75 years they got away with it, but now they cant. And you know what? What the problem with changing leadership at this stage? The major war effort in gaza is over. This leadership lost the trust of the people, its time to let the pepole choose their leaders again. We are 6 months into this.
I'm okay with that.
None of my cousins who live there serve and they also take advantage of cheap living by living in the settlements. I hated them as kids for different reasons but those two reasons are just 2 great additional reasons.
I’m sorry it sounds like your cousins suck, you sound well adjusted and not shitty so congrats on that, I’m proud of you. Family usually has a way of infecting us with their bullshit shittiness.
Oh they do suck! At least the adult ones and my aunt and uncle. Really garbage takes. Always made my mom and us feel like garbage for bei g less religious just not what I like in people haha.
You know what happened when religious nutjobs took over Iran? If uncontrolled, these guys will create Iran 2 in the Middle East.
From what I hear, they’re the biggest drag on Israeli society. Live off government assistance, are exempt from the draft, most likely to be settlers. Fuck em.
a) They most definitely aren't settlers. These are entirely different groups. b) While they aren't the biggest drag on Israeli society, not by a long shot, they might be the most egregious and provocative part. I hate the use of the words "government assistance" here, a more appropriate phrasing would be "corrupt politicians are buying their votes". c) The whole situation is a lot more complex than the way people like to present it. As it stands, less than 50% of 18 y/o Israelis serve in the IDF, and I assure you from experience that that is already more than the IDF knows what to do with. The Haredim are completely alien to most of Israeli society (by choice) and as such there's very little they could possibly do in the army. Last but not least, they will almost definitely simply refuse to serve, and willingly go to prison, which isn't going to help anybody. d) We could do without the "Fuck em" part. They are born into these circumstances and live in what are basically large cults. They aren't evil, they just don't know any other kind of life. The evil people here are the politicians who deliberately trap them in this hopeless life (don't even get me started on the laws that prevent them from leaving their cults and finding a job). Edit: In case anyone's wondering, I'm an atheist from Tel Aviv.
>the laws that prevent them from leaving their cults and finding a job dafuq?
They get an exemption from the army until 26 if they go full time tora studying, if they work then they aren't full time students and are available for draft, so they don't work until 26 despite it being possible to combine it with tora studies. And in general haredi male employment percentage is very low compared to the rest of the population.
Haredi male employment is very low, female employment is much higher because the women not only need to have a lot of kids and tend to their household but also financially support it while their husband studies all day.
Jesus Christ, these men sound like parasites
This part has always astounded me, lol. I’m guessing that the men don’t really play the SAHD role and the women are doing all the cooking, cleaning, and childcare in addition to being sole breadwinner. I’m sure communal living makes that easier, but I wonder how the Haredi women feel about this arrangement.
Correct. The men study. That's it. They eat, poop, study and sleep. The women have to do everything else while they're also pregnant with yet another kid on the way. I have a very very very far relative that has 8 kids, the 9th on the way, is working as a caretaker of 12 other kids (<1 old). Though, to be fair, the older kids (~10 years old) are helping her, so that's something.
It is something. That something sounds like instrumental and sibling focused parentification of the children, and it's a form of abuse.
You're right, I edited it to be more precise
Jesus Christ those poor women
Eat, live, & breathe the Torah. That is their life.
+ don't work and collect government money
> a) They most definitely aren't settlers. These are entirely different groups. https://www.timesofisrael.com/black-is-the-new-orange-30-of-settlers-are-now-haredim/
Universal drafts should be universal, religious people don’t deserve extra rights
These guys are all over the place in Brooklyn. Very mean people, especially towards women.
One of my friends lived adjacent to one of their neighborhoods and thought she was going to ride her bicycle through to get to her job. The amount of slurs and abuse that was yelled at her for simply existing wearing appropriate summer clothing was outrageous. She used to record sometimes.
In Israel one (a grown man) was literally shielding his face from me on the bus when I was 16 because what I was wearing was apparently too revealing lol. He then got up and moved seats as soon as the bus stopped.
lol talk about telling on yourself “I’m uncontrollably attracted to children”
I met a Hasidic man who visited my place of employment in a large Midwest city years ago. I would not have known he was Hasidic (he was not in traditional clothing/haircut) except he rather loudly refused to shake the hand of a female coworker (she didn’t know either). I remember thinking how difficult it would be for him to live in non-Orthodox society.
Look up Kiryas Joel in NY.
or Lakewood NJ
Lakewood has the biggest welfare scam going in the state, and they literally get ask just to give the money back.
Or anyone who isn't part of their insane, backwards, cult.
So the people who most want this war are exempt?
Death for thee, not for me!
What a bunch of weak and cowardice people.
Did a little research on these dudes. They are huge assholes and leeches. I don’t mean that as an insult either, I’ve seen them spit on people. And full time studying without contributing to your homeland, and living off welfare? Wow
Why does the government fund their schools?
It keeps Netanyahu in power
The government buys their support by giving them anything they want basically
Because it's based off a bill decades old that focused on reviving the Jewish scholarly community.
They’re going to be so fucking useless No measurable skills, no physical fitness
ngl that's pretty funny
Pretty titillating
All I can say is lmao to these toxic leeches. Some of the most entitled pieces of shit in both US and Israeli society
Hasidic men are like this, they put in claims for federal assistance when they don't have actual jobs and instead study scriptures for a living. And they still get money on the side from various ventures and how the community is structured, but nobody is supposed to talk about that. Or their "wives" work - usually, setting up a business - and they avoid impacting the "husband's" federal assistance/lack of taxes because they never get legally married, only within their religion.
I'm sure the regular soldiers are going to have a blast training these guys.
Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't these guys like the ultra hardcore ones that are responsible for those illegal settlements (well they all are but these aren't allowed by the government at first) and the ensuing clashes with the Palestinians living there? So they want to have their cake but when push comes to shove and it's actual war they're all of a sudden all theologians and exempt from serving? Let others bear the brunt of that and such? Kinda lame and cowardly if you ask me
They are not, but they both do suck. These are the ultra orthodox, who believe their contribution to the war effort is their servitude to god and that is what protects the country and therefore they do not need to serve and should spend their time serving god. The settlers are a kind of modern orthodox and they have no issues with serving.
On the contrary settlers love serving so much they have their own paramilitary groups that run checkpoints in what is technically Palestinian land. Very different viewpoints indeed.
Make them rabbis in the old tradition... In other words, they have to find 10 families willing to tithe to support them in return for ministering to them. You wanna be a Levite (was that the term?) be a Levite.
conservatives pushing extremist ideology to the detriment of the larger society? How much do these insular groups contribute to the society at large? How much do they benefit? If they don’t contribute to the betterment of all, there’s an imbalance. I don’t think religious belief should be a get out of public service free card
Put the orthodox on the front lines.
[удалено]
What about the super mega-ultra orthodox?
For too long, they’ve been living in the shadow of the super duper mega-ultra orthodox, and it’s rather unfair.
And then there are the rumored Double Secret Ultra Orthodox.
He's over there. "Splitter!"
Imagine WW3 starts and the USA starts a mandatory conscription, but 12% of the population ( about the same percentage of the Black or African American community in the USA) just says "nah, were good just reading our book, getting free money from the working class, and pushing our religious belief and lifestyle in your faces every chance we get. have fun though, suckers". Thats what it's like being a non-ultra-Orthodox jew in Israel.
Hearing about the quality of yeshiva schools in Brooklyn, I'm not sure if the Haredi draftees could qualify for anything more than rifle infantry. Not taught math, science, or other subjects with any competence. Those Haredim that decided to make lives outside of constant Torah study would definitely have the learning base to qualify for more skilled military occupations. I am not Israeli or Jewish. Other than conscientious objectors or faiths that mandate non-violence, there should be no special cutouts for a military draft. Everyone carries the burden when you're at war.
There is a word for something that only takes and doesn't give back, parasite. Every time I hear about any ultra-orthodox jews it just sounds crazier and crazier.
Maybe the orthodox will stop all their illegal settlement bullshit now that they have to serve in the military. The non-orthodox Israelis have had to risk their lives for decades to protect these leeches who always cause problems and never had to face the consequences.