A Charedi Exodus?

Will charedim leave Israel rather than join the IDF?

In the ongoing furor over the charedi mass exemption from army service while the rest of the population has to deal with increasing military needs, there is talk that the charedi exemption may end. In response, the Sefardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, declared that charedim will buy airline tickets and leave Israel rather than draft. Religious Services Ministry director-general Yehudah Avidan said that he would do the same.

The general response from the public was “Adios, amigos!” Some offered to contribute El Al Frequent Flyer points to buy tickets for charedim who leave. Others commented that they looked forward to the price of apartments coming down, and to the removal of a harmful drain on the economy.

Unfortunately, it’s not difficult to see why the charedi community is not very popular with the rest of Israel. But more seriously, there are two distinct problems that Rav Yosef’s statement reveals.

One is that it reflects a total lack of care for the Jewish nation. At a time when every other community is sacrificing its young men (and sometimes women) in IDF service, and when there is a dire need for even more soldiers and reserve duty, Rav Yosef’s declaration that charedim will leave rather than share the national responsibility is a disgrace. Surely the Chief Rabbi of Israel should be inspiring the nation with the beauty of Judaism, not turning people off from it by making it about selfishness and avoiding shared responsibility.

The second issue with Rav Yosef’s statement is that his claim is simply absurd, and his obliviousness as to the reason why reflects a core problem with charedi society.

Let’s suppose that a million charedim really were to decide to leave Israel, to escape having to share the responsibility of IDF service. Where on earth would they go? Who would have them?

To be sure, there are countries which accept immigrants. Spain, for example, has long ceased its policy of expelling Jews, and now has one of the most open immigration policies in Europe. Poland, home to an idealized community in Ashkenazi history, also accepts immigrants in large numbers.

But there are still conditions to immigration. And one of the most basic is that the immigrant group are economically beneficial to the country rather than creating an economic burden. They must enter the workforce. They must pay taxes rather than just take welfare benefits. They must create a net benefit for the country.

No country is going to accept a community of a million people in which the parents refuse to let their boys get a secular education, the men avoid entering the workforce for as long as possible, almost nobody goes to college to study for professional careers, welfare benefits are required to support large families, voting blocs are created to obtain tax breaks and other financial ways of benefiting at everyone else’s expense, and the community refuses to partake in national responsibilities and activities which differ from their very narrow religious way of life. Why on earth would any country accept such a population?

The fact that charedi rabbinic leaders such as Rav Yosef don’t grasp this reflects the fundamental problem: Charedim do not grasp what it means to be a large community and what it means to be part of a modern country.

This has all kinds of consequences. They don’t grasp that arranging an event for 200,000 people is not the same as arranging an overflow for Rosh Hashana in shul, and that’s why 45 people died in Meron. They don’t grasp that an exemption from army service for a few hundred yeshivah students to rebuild after the Holocaust is not the same as exempting an enormous population. They do not realize (or do not care) about the economic drain which they create on society. In a huge and wealthy country like the USA this may not matter so much, though it doubtless increases antisemitism. But in a tiny country like Israel, having a large and rapidly growing sector of the population which refuses to even discuss its woefully inadequate role vis-a-vis security and the economy causes great national harm - and ultimately even an existential threat.