Bubble Jews

Yeshivish, Working for a Living, and "Supporting" the IDF

Since dipping my toes into the LinkedIn network, I’ve encountered a large number of Jews of a particular type. They are from a yeshivish background, but they work for a living rather than being in kollel. Some of them live outside of Israel, some of them have emigrated to Israel. But they all started off in the US, and like most religious Jews from there, they support Israel, including the IDF.

Yet their view of life in Israel comes from people in their own rather narrow social circles, along with magazines such as Mishpacha. Accordingly, despite being in the working world, these fine people are living in a bubble. They have a number of beliefs which do not reflect reality, and this results in problems.

“Bubble Jews” are, of course, aware that Israel has been at war for nearly two years. And they are staunchly on Israel’s side. They may even be supportive of the IDF in a pratical way, such as donating to IDF support groups or (if they live in Israel) actually sending food. But because they are not part of communities that actually serve in the IDF, and thus they do not understand what that means, and how people in those communities are affected and how they feel. (Of course that is also true of many non-yeshivish Jews in the US, but non-yeshivish Jews generally understand what war means and don’t have an ideological block to accepting what it requires from citizens or to criticizing those who avoid civic duties.)

All this dawned on me when I started sharing some of this blog’s content on LinkedIn. I suddenly received criticism from many of these people who had never seen anything like what I was writing, and were absolutely horrified that I was publicly criticizing the charedi community for not serving. Here’s one gem of a comment that I received:

“You call yourself a Rabbi. How exactly are you one? Have you ever seen any other rabbis bashing out other Jews in public OR private?”

Well, yes. To give one particularly relevant example: The rabbinic leaders of the charedi world have been repeatedly publicly bashing all the Jews who want the burden of national defense to be equally shared, slandering them as being motivated by false ideologies and hatred of Torah.

Of course, rabbis have been publicly criticizing what they see as wrongful behavior for as long as rabbis have existed. The Orthodox criticize the Open Orthodox and the Open Orthodox criticize the Orthodox. The Vilna Gaon criticized the chassidim. Rav Yaakov Emden criticized those he suspected of being followers of Shabbtai Zvi, including prestigious rabbis. The Rishonim of Ashkenaz criticized the Rambam and other rationalist philosophers, and the Rambam and other rationalist philosophers criticized the Rishonim of Ashkenaz. Chazal had some pretty harsh things to say about lots of people, including Sadducees, great Torah scholars who lack da’as, and people who don’t raise their children to be economically productive.

But what’s really going on here is several related phenomena. The first is that publicly calling out religious Jews (that Bubble Jews see as being part of their own broader community) for problematic behavior bothers them much more than the problematic behavior itself. This is the same phenomenon that we saw with child abuse, where many people were much more bothered by bloggers calling it out than by the behavior itself and by rabbinic leaders brushing it under the carpet. “It’s such a chillul Hashem!” Bubble Jews are very image conscious, and they are more bothered by the unfortunate but neccessary ways of dealing with problems than by the problems themselves. They think that achdus means Jews getting along and never criticizing each other, rather than it meaning caring for what other Jews are going through, sharing responsibility, and taking action against those who fail to do so.

This brings us to the second aspect. Living in their bubble, these Jews do not grasp the depths of the problem of charedim not serving in the IDF. They see it as a personal lifestyle choice, and even if they recognize that it might involve problematic aspects, they don’t grasp the harm that it causes to others. They don’t understand the price that everyone else pays due to the refusal of the charedi community to enlist - the longer time that they have to spend away from their studies and careers and wives and children, the financial and physical and emotional harm that this causes to the soldiers and their families. They don’t have friends whose careers have collapsed due to the war, they don’t see wives who are buckling under the strain of absent husbands and children developing behavioral problems, they don’t have friends whose children have been mutilated in combat (or worse).

The lack of grasp of the problem is reflected in how Bubble Jews who live in Israel are proud of their own form of support for the IDF. I’ve seen Bubble Jews proclaim that they are connected to the war and doing their part by posting pro-Israel messaging on LinkedIn. I’ve heard Bubble Jews proudly tell me about the meals they cooked for soldiers when the war broke out, the barbeques they participated in on army bases, and the clothing they donated to soldiers. All these things are nice, but what they don’t realize is that posting support for Israel online does not protect Jews from their enemies, and soldiers and reservists still need help nearly two years later even when the fad of helping them has passed.

Even more to the point, if everyone was like them - baking cookies and making barbeques and gifting clothing - the country would cease to exist. Israel cannot survive based on people doing some nice feel-good acts of chessed, it needs people putting in the real difficult chessed of years and years of combat duty and other forms of army service.

The obliviousness of Bubble Jews is also reflected in their having no idea how religious Jews in IDF-serving communities feel about those who don’t serve. I’ve heard them claim that the only people attacking charedim for not serving in the army are secularists or rabid charedi-haters. They have no idea that there are entire communities of serious Torah Jews who are appalled by the charedi lack of participation in the war. Bubble Jews don’t read Dati newspapers like Mekor Rishon; instead they read Mishpacha, which on the one occasion that they interviewed parents of soldiers, ensured that they interviewed someone who said that they respected charedim who learn instead. I’ve seen Bubble Jews who live in Israel proudly post pictures of their army-age sons enjoying vacations or engaged in other activities, completely oblivious to the pain and resentment that this causes to people whose sons would be arrested if they avoided army service and are instead fighting in Gaza. They have no idea that the Dati community is furious with them.

What do we do about Bubble Jews? The answer is obvious: We need to speak up and spread the facts about the harsh reality.

(Feel free to connect to me on LinkedIn! I’m also on Twitter/X.)

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