Inherent in the idea that chareidi learners are complementary to those who serve in the army is also a delegitimization of the learning of hesder men. (My inclination, as a 53-year old Teaneck resident, was to write "hesder boys," but they are men in the sense of איש, warriors and מוסרי נפש in both the realms of Torah and military bravery.)
Why waste your time with him he’s obviously messhuginah. Or loco en cabesa either way he’s obviously also antisocial enough to not understand the necessity of taxes so he probably belongs living in a cave by himself. Definition of a troll.
Your comment has nothing to do with Israel and its conscription and taxation policies. It has to do with all conscription and all taxation. There's a book about this, it's called "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", by Robert A. Heinlein. The fact that you personally are a hardline libertarian has no bearing on the fact that the govt. does in fact need money to run, and the army does in fact need soldiers to fight.
“If you send your son to a yeshiva, then I will go to the army!”
I'm guessing that he was parroting a talking point from his yeshiva. I heard the same type of thing at my baal tshuva Haredi yeshiva 30+ years ago. The argument is something like this...
The country needs citizens that carry the burden of Torah study (so that we are worthy of divine protection) in addition to carrying the burden of military service. We'd be happy to switch places if that's what they want.
There's not enough time in the day to respond to all of the fallacies of this demagoguery. For me, the fundamental problem is that it is totally insincere. The Haredi world avoids military service because they can get away with it without any direct bad consequences to their sector. They're not concerned with the country or the wider community or even the medium to long term crisis brewing in their own sector. They do it because they have an effective political voting block that enables it. Everything else is a song and dance.
Of course, this entire "debate" takes as a given that certain people are entitled to "learn" based on birth and certain people aren't on the same principle.
I'm surprised that a learned person who has contributed many learned comments should think I'm commenting on more than the narrow issue that I write about. Nachum said that birth is a factor. I say no, they welcome converts. Elsewhere in these comments Yehoshua says, “I can tell you that I can off the top of my head think of 4 such families [that became Chareidi] whose fathers learned in hesder yeshivot that live within a two minute walk from me.” Those would be the children of converts. Chareidism maintains an open door policy for these types without regard to birth.
Funding charedi yeshivot out of Zionist funds (both Israeli government and WZO) is bad enough, Eretz HaKodesh wants to fund *American* students learning in charedi places.
"Sheer vileness" What is in fact vile is the haredi leadership's demand that every other sector of Jews in Israel support their lifestyle not only with their treasure, but with their blood and their children's. Oh, and on top of that, we must give them our unconditional approval for it.
This may be a pillar of Israeli haredi ideology, but they have no right to demand anyone else comply with it, let alone consent or love them for it.
The clueless one here is the writer of this post. He seems to believe that the only way someone can see matters differently than he does is if they don't really understand the facts. Get a clue. There are plenty of people who know the same facts as you, yet, believe it or not, disagree with your conclusions.
Without giving away too many personal details, I know someone who went to a hesder yeshiva, is currently a rebbi in a hesder yeshiva, and lives in a Dati-Leumi community, who nevertheless sends his children to chareidi schools. Bais Yaakov for the girls, and yeshiva/no army for the boys. Do you think that is because he is unaware of what hesder yeshivas are? Or, just maybe, he is quite aware of what they are, and chose to raise his children differently despite that?
Once again, you seem incapable, or unwilling, to accept the possibility that people see things differently than you.
Enjoy this wonderful quote from David Foster Wallace:
A Democratic Spirit is one that combines rigor and humility, i.e., passionate conviction plus sedulous respect for the convictions of others. As any American knows, this is a very difficult spirit to cultivate and maintain, particularly when it comes to issues you feel strongly about. Equally tough is a D.S.’s criterion of 100 percent intellectual integrity — you have to be willing to look honestly at yourself and your motives for believing what you believe, and to do it more or less continually.
This kind of stuff is advanced U.S. citizenship. A true Democratic Spirit is up there with religious faith and emotional maturity and all those other top-of-the-Maslow-Pyramid-type qualities people spend their whole lives working on. A Democratic Spirit’s constituent rigor and humility and honesty are in fact so hard to maintain on certain issues that it’s almost irresistibly tempting to fall in with some established dogmatic camp and to follow that camp’s line on the issue and to let your position harden within the camp and become inflexible and to believe that any other camp is either evil or insane and to spend all your time and energy trying to shout over them.
I am quite confident that you are wrong, and that you have zero evidence to back up your assertion. If you do have evidence for that, please supply it.
In Ramat Beit Shemesh, for example, there are many many people who grew up in the modern Orthodox/YU world who are raising their families chareidi. I doubt that there is a minyan who grew up chareidi who are raising their families as Dati Leumi.
I know that. But many MO/YU people attended yeshivot hesder, are fully aware of what those yeshivot and that community are about, and chose to raise their families in a different way. There are far many more of people like that than chareidim who are raising their families as Dati Leumi.
I don't know what you mean by "graduates." Do hesder yeshivot have graduations? I also do not know what you mean by "many." But I can tell you that I can off the top of my head think of 4 such families whose fathers learned in hesder yeshivot that live within a two minute walk from me.
It's not proportionate but it definitely exists. It's sure you can find more outside of RBS. I hear יהודה ושומרון has more. The average hesder yeshiva with some Americas will have a few. Maybe they aren't from the heart of Lakewood but definitely there are people who went to black hat schools in the US who chose the hesder path. I was unusual but not alone.
However point taken re the many MO/YU who go on to raise their family in the Charedi system. Although, i'm not sure the end result is that those families are fully integrated into the Israeli charedi world. ie how many of their next generation end up going to the army etc...
would be interested in any statistical or anecdotal info
Here in the UK, Eretz Hakodesh have done a huge amount of advertising, they have raised their profile massively over the last five years. Most of the propaganda that they put out can be dissembled easily by anyone that cares to understand the nuances. They go so far as to not even mention the WZO and make no mention at all of the mechanism of what they are trying to achieve and how.
The most worrying thing of all, is that the UK elections are coming up in June and Mizrachi have not said a word. There is no voice in the Jewish community other then Eretz Hakodesh.
Thank you for continuing to speak out so eloquently on these issues. I have read and greatly appreciated your books especially the one on creation. The voice I hear in all your writings is one of crying out for unity- not necessarily thinking the same but caring and acting towards the common good of the Am Yisrael.
One of the problems of forwarding is that those who don’t want to hear won’t. And BTW, you’d be amazed at how many people are voting, and voting for RZ. I learn with a very Chassidish/Yeshivish group who all voted after acknowledging that there was “daas Torah” not to do so. In this case, there are enough opposing opinions that people can actually use some common sense. Kinda reminds me of people who hear a psak not to use a smart phone, then do it anyway when the need arises. There are/is more support here for the Chayalim than you’d think.
The idea that Charedim are a bunch of bots who blindly follow daas torah is a comforting thought to those who don't want to allow the Torah to teach them how to act. They do what they want, and when called out on it, they disingenuously argue, "I don't believe in da'as torah."
If they had to confront the truth, that Charedim are not blind followers, and there is a real value system behind their lives, their cushion is flattened. They will have to deal with the truth - their lives are based on goyishe ideals and their personal wishes. They are not the idealists their nemeses are.
What is the "ideal" of making everyone else shoulder the burden of national defense on your behalf without your community having any need to contribute?
Brainwashing! But today there are enough media sources that at some point the Chareidim will hear about the contradictions and the baseless claims they profess.
What percentage of Mizrachi's 2020 dollars from WZO were disbursed to Hesder yeshivot or to soldier related programs (e.g., lone soldiers, physically injured soldiers, soldiers suffering PTSD and needing emotional and spiritual care etc.)?
We sent this question to Mizrachi several weeks ago and we have not received any response.
To vote or not in the WZO elections is now a huge debate in America and the latest saga in the "gedolim" wars. Rav Gurwicz and others say it's a "Chiyuv" to vote.
Such extreme opposite points of view from Orthodox "gedolim" are rather confusing to me. Does that mean each side holds the other is a sinner and as such not not real rabbi's?
I would like to focus on reason number 3 and 4 given by the moetzes.
3) "For elected delegates, it is forbidden to join a group of sinners (hischabrus I’resha’im)." How is this any different than joining the "Zionist" Israeli government which is also "a group of sinners"?
4) "The voters are mesayei’a lidei aveirah (assisting in the commission of aveiros)." The orthodax people voting are voting for a party that would fund yeshivos. The voters and representatives are not directly commissioning aveiros. Yet because aveiros are done by the WZO as a group, it is called assising in aveiros. So once again, why is voting and participating in the Isreali elections and government any different?
Although I am happy that many Orthodox jews are not voting in the WZO to fund yeshivos that would avoid the army, i think it reveals the hypocrisy of some of theese rabbi's.
Much was written addressing your questions by the predecessors of today's Chareidim back in the '50s. Prominent among them is בעיות הזמן by R Reuvein Grozovsky. I suspect that "Otzar Forum" has online discussions on this and similar issues.
As far as the differences between the WZO and voting in the Israeli elections, any one who lives here is a part of the State - s/he is not choosing to be so.
But a standard response to calls to be drafted is, "We were here first, we didn't ask to live in the State!"
(It's a lie- almost all charedim in Israel are descended from people who came after 1948, and almost all the others after 1897- but the claim is made.)
This thread is hogwash, and "we didn't ask for a State" is hogwash.
Why?
Because there is no possibility of reproducing the Charedi on-the-dole lifestyle anywhere else in the world. The Charedi system here is an artifact of the Jewish State.
So a Charedi claiming he doesn't want a Jewish State (not "ask") is not being very consistent. He doesn't really mean it.
(Now there are Charedim who don't take any more from the State. I'm not referring to them, but I'll note that the survival of such purists may depend on them either being a self sufficient community, or dependent on others but small in number. The latter is essentially a continuation of חלוקה, which was a economic system not sustainable for a large population.)
The short answer is that he can say that dismantling the state is worth the price of doing away with the Israeli system and replacing it with the Lakewood etc. systems found in various western democracies.
You can check back if I had time to give the long answer to this your comment and the “At the risk of repeating myself, which of these latecomers would rather now live under (a) the Ottomans, (b) the British or (c) the Arabs?” one.
The same answer in longhand is like this, if you can manage it. If it is beyond your ideology and life's work to consider relinquishing sovereignty, then read no further. Having been educated for years on end and then devoting all your energies to that cause, it might be a horrid sacrilege to consider the other possibility. But we are trying to pick their brains, not yours. You (and anyone else) can stop reading now and I won't bother you (and them) any further.
===
Maybe now you and everyone are gone and I'm talking to the walls. Hello, if anyone is there, imagine the POTUS being persuaded to stop his fixation on Canada becoming the 51st state and taking the State of Israel instead, the first new state since the State of Hawaii became the 50th state. Then having all the Israeli Mks agree to to their new roles as state senators of the 51st state. The executive branch of the government headed by governor Bibi and his successors. And sending senators and congressmen to Washington. And making US government money available for Kollel families and plain poor families in Israel as it is in the US.
Or having Israel becoming annexed to a European Robin Hood steal from the rich and give to the poor socialist country where the subsidies are even higher.
Ah, but there's a price, you have less control of government money because they're less dependent on your vote. And you might end up having to go to work after some years in Kollel like often happens in Lakewood and elsewhere. Okay, so that's the end of the Israeli looong term Kollel system and the beginning of a new to you model as has been several decades in the diaspora.
So much if the sovereignty is ceded to a modern government. What if the only choice is to have it ceded to a government of the savages? See my other comment.
Which...? Well, there are two groups, those who say נלך לכלא ולא לצהל and those who say נלך למות ולא לצהל. The first group aren't willing to die for their beliefs, (only to sit in jail), while the second are. Both are happy to be where they are and ignore the government's demands on them. But if that option should cease to exist, and they are faced with the hard decision to serve in the צהל under Israeli sovereignty or that the savages take over the country, the second group will take the second choice.
They would be modeling themselves after certain Polish and Lithuanian Jews during WWII who had to choose whether to escape TO the Soviet repression of religion or stay and wait to be murdered by the Germans, and chose the latter. It fascinates me to observe discussions of how this or that irreligious organization asks for credit for saving lives when they subsequently made those they saved irreligious. Some would say no thank you, citing גדול המחטיאו מן ההורגו. Some of these very people would happily give their lives for The Land but can't imagine anyone happily giving their lives for The Religion. That comes off as a bit dull.
An important caveat is that they should be governed by the pre-Zionism savages. Part of the savages' current antisemitism is a result of Zionism “depriving” them of “their” land. Those saying no thank you to Zionism include undoing the antisemitism that it caused. Such as convincing the savages we no longer aspire to sovereignty; hate us less.
That's a better way to frame the discussion, factoring also my other comment that of course a modern government is better than that of the savages.
Another factor is private sponsorship. A group of Chareidi elders toured Chu”l the other year to raise $100,000,000 and failed to get it all but got most of it. If that is repeated, the Israeli as opposed to the Lakewood etc. model could be maintained to whatever degree.
Inherent in the idea that chareidi learners are complementary to those who serve in the army is also a delegitimization of the learning of hesder men. (My inclination, as a 53-year old Teaneck resident, was to write "hesder boys," but they are men in the sense of איש, warriors and מוסרי נפש in both the realms of Torah and military bravery.)
Everyonee should equally share the burden of defense, as well as wok and pay taxes.
These hareidim will bankrupt the country. Their way of life must change.
Conscription isn't slavery. (Especially for a Hesder Torah scholar?)
Taxation isn't armed robbery. (Which communities are victimized by such so-called "armed robbery"? Which are the beneficiaries?)
An army is meant to defend the nation, and does not become superfluous because you don't approve of their ideology.
Why waste your time with him he’s obviously messhuginah. Or loco en cabesa either way he’s obviously also antisocial enough to not understand the necessity of taxes so he probably belongs living in a cave by himself. Definition of a troll.
Your comment has nothing to do with Israel and its conscription and taxation policies. It has to do with all conscription and all taxation. There's a book about this, it's called "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", by Robert A. Heinlein. The fact that you personally are a hardline libertarian has no bearing on the fact that the govt. does in fact need money to run, and the army does in fact need soldiers to fight.
“If you send your son to a yeshiva, then I will go to the army!”
I'm guessing that he was parroting a talking point from his yeshiva. I heard the same type of thing at my baal tshuva Haredi yeshiva 30+ years ago. The argument is something like this...
The country needs citizens that carry the burden of Torah study (so that we are worthy of divine protection) in addition to carrying the burden of military service. We'd be happy to switch places if that's what they want.
There's not enough time in the day to respond to all of the fallacies of this demagoguery. For me, the fundamental problem is that it is totally insincere. The Haredi world avoids military service because they can get away with it without any direct bad consequences to their sector. They're not concerned with the country or the wider community or even the medium to long term crisis brewing in their own sector. They do it because they have an effective political voting block that enables it. Everything else is a song and dance.
Of course, this entire "debate" takes as a given that certain people are entitled to "learn" based on birth and certain people aren't on the same principle.
But where feasible Chareidim recruit from DL families to their yeshivas.
Don't be obtuse.
I'm surprised that a learned person who has contributed many learned comments should think I'm commenting on more than the narrow issue that I write about. Nachum said that birth is a factor. I say no, they welcome converts. Elsewhere in these comments Yehoshua says, “I can tell you that I can off the top of my head think of 4 such families [that became Chareidi] whose fathers learned in hesder yeshivot that live within a two minute walk from me.” Those would be the children of converts. Chareidism maintains an open door policy for these types without regard to birth.
Great piece, well written and argued
Agreed 👍
Funding charedi yeshivot out of Zionist funds (both Israeli government and WZO) is bad enough, Eretz HaKodesh wants to fund *American* students learning in charedi places.
We get it. Money for their institutions is the haredi sector's equivalent to PA's stipends for terrorists with blood on their hands.
Wow we've gone to a new level of sheer vileness. Yeshiva students are akin to terrorists with blood on their hands..... Nice
"Sheer vileness" What is in fact vile is the haredi leadership's demand that every other sector of Jews in Israel support their lifestyle not only with their treasure, but with their blood and their children's. Oh, and on top of that, we must give them our unconditional approval for it.
This may be a pillar of Israeli haredi ideology, but they have no right to demand anyone else comply with it, let alone consent or love them for it.
The clueless one here is the writer of this post. He seems to believe that the only way someone can see matters differently than he does is if they don't really understand the facts. Get a clue. There are plenty of people who know the same facts as you, yet, believe it or not, disagree with your conclusions.
Without giving away too many personal details, I know someone who went to a hesder yeshiva, is currently a rebbi in a hesder yeshiva, and lives in a Dati-Leumi community, who nevertheless sends his children to chareidi schools. Bais Yaakov for the girls, and yeshiva/no army for the boys. Do you think that is because he is unaware of what hesder yeshivas are? Or, just maybe, he is quite aware of what they are, and chose to raise his children differently despite that?
He's aware, and he chooses to adopt a selfish path. I know many people like that.
Once again, you seem incapable, or unwilling, to accept the possibility that people see things differently than you.
Enjoy this wonderful quote from David Foster Wallace:
A Democratic Spirit is one that combines rigor and humility, i.e., passionate conviction plus sedulous respect for the convictions of others. As any American knows, this is a very difficult spirit to cultivate and maintain, particularly when it comes to issues you feel strongly about. Equally tough is a D.S.’s criterion of 100 percent intellectual integrity — you have to be willing to look honestly at yourself and your motives for believing what you believe, and to do it more or less continually.
This kind of stuff is advanced U.S. citizenship. A true Democratic Spirit is up there with religious faith and emotional maturity and all those other top-of-the-Maslow-Pyramid-type qualities people spend their whole lives working on. A Democratic Spirit’s constituent rigor and humility and honesty are in fact so hard to maintain on certain issues that it’s almost irresistibly tempting to fall in with some established dogmatic camp and to follow that camp’s line on the issue and to let your position harden within the camp and become inflexible and to believe that any other camp is either evil or insane and to spend all your time and energy trying to shout over them.
So he is the exception that proves the rule.
If anything there are more people who left the charedi world to raise their families in the DL world
I am quite confident that you are wrong, and that you have zero evidence to back up your assertion. If you do have evidence for that, please supply it.
In Ramat Beit Shemesh, for example, there are many many people who grew up in the modern Orthodox/YU world who are raising their families chareidi. I doubt that there is a minyan who grew up chareidi who are raising their families as Dati Leumi.
MO/YU is not Dati Leumi!!!!
I know that. But many MO/YU people attended yeshivot hesder, are fully aware of what those yeshivot and that community are about, and chose to raise their families in a different way. There are far many more of people like that than chareidim who are raising their families as Dati Leumi.
I do not remotely believe that there are many graduates of hesder who send their kids to the charedi system.
Much of shaalavim and KBY. Even Hakotel. If you live in RBS, Rabbi Myers went to gush and now sends his kids to mesivta beit Shemesh.
I don't know what you mean by "graduates." Do hesder yeshivot have graduations? I also do not know what you mean by "many." But I can tell you that I can off the top of my head think of 4 such families whose fathers learned in hesder yeshivot that live within a two minute walk from me.
It's not proportionate but it definitely exists. It's sure you can find more outside of RBS. I hear יהודה ושומרון has more. The average hesder yeshiva with some Americas will have a few. Maybe they aren't from the heart of Lakewood but definitely there are people who went to black hat schools in the US who chose the hesder path. I was unusual but not alone.
There are certainly people like that. But I do not think that it is more than the number that went in the other direction.
To that I agree.
MO/YU is not Dati Leumi.
However point taken re the many MO/YU who go on to raise their family in the Charedi system. Although, i'm not sure the end result is that those families are fully integrated into the Israeli charedi world. ie how many of their next generation end up going to the army etc...
would be interested in any statistical or anecdotal info
Some % of them do end up going to the army, but that does not mean that they join the DL world.
“though they seem to specialize in it, especially if they are from Baltimore”.
Wait, our #1 claim to fame is protecting sexual predators from prosecution. What did we do to get a mention here?
Lol
I think he may have the current head of the OU in mind.
That makes sense.
No, he has the current head of Ner Israel in mind!
He's mostly a standard Charedi Rabbi. Rabbi Hauer would position himself differently even though he is really Charedi lite.
That makes sense
What about the O-U? They seem to have really gone over to the "other side", by acknowledging the validity of the Haredi position.
My occasional letters have never elicited any sort of substantive response.
Is there any way to apply pressure?
The OU actually endorses Mizrachi in the WZO elections.
More than endorse… they are an allied organization that stands to gain from mizrachi votes. As does YU and Touro
Here in the UK, Eretz Hakodesh have done a huge amount of advertising, they have raised their profile massively over the last five years. Most of the propaganda that they put out can be dissembled easily by anyone that cares to understand the nuances. They go so far as to not even mention the WZO and make no mention at all of the mechanism of what they are trying to achieve and how.
The most worrying thing of all, is that the UK elections are coming up in June and Mizrachi have not said a word. There is no voice in the Jewish community other then Eretz Hakodesh.
Thank you for continuing to speak out so eloquently on these issues. I have read and greatly appreciated your books especially the one on creation. The voice I hear in all your writings is one of crying out for unity- not necessarily thinking the same but caring and acting towards the common good of the Am Yisrael.
One of the problems of forwarding is that those who don’t want to hear won’t. And BTW, you’d be amazed at how many people are voting, and voting for RZ. I learn with a very Chassidish/Yeshivish group who all voted after acknowledging that there was “daas Torah” not to do so. In this case, there are enough opposing opinions that people can actually use some common sense. Kinda reminds me of people who hear a psak not to use a smart phone, then do it anyway when the need arises. There are/is more support here for the Chayalim than you’d think.
The idea that Charedim are a bunch of bots who blindly follow daas torah is a comforting thought to those who don't want to allow the Torah to teach them how to act. They do what they want, and when called out on it, they disingenuously argue, "I don't believe in da'as torah."
If they had to confront the truth, that Charedim are not blind followers, and there is a real value system behind their lives, their cushion is flattened. They will have to deal with the truth - their lives are based on goyishe ideals and their personal wishes. They are not the idealists their nemeses are.
What is the "ideal" of making everyone else shoulder the burden of national defense on your behalf without your community having any need to contribute?
So by process of elimination, they must be mindless bots. When the mindless bots theory is busted, what's your next option?
Brainwashing! But today there are enough media sources that at some point the Chareidim will hear about the contradictions and the baseless claims they profess.
Are you speaking for yourself?
What is the real value system that you are referring to?
Great article, but here's my question:
What percentage of Mizrachi's 2020 dollars from WZO were disbursed to Hesder yeshivot or to soldier related programs (e.g., lone soldiers, physically injured soldiers, soldiers suffering PTSD and needing emotional and spiritual care etc.)?
We sent this question to Mizrachi several weeks ago and we have not received any response.
Maybe you should ask them for a copy of their annual report or some other similar document. Then you can research it yourself.
Be sure to let us know what you discovered.
Thanks for this. Had no idea
Thank you for this article! I’ve been looking for an Israeli perspective on the WZO in context of this very issue
To vote or not in the WZO elections is now a huge debate in America and the latest saga in the "gedolim" wars. Rav Gurwicz and others say it's a "Chiyuv" to vote.
https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/israel-news/2376328/harav-avrohom-gurwicz-rosh-yeshivas-gateshead-its-a-chiyuv-to-have-a-say-in-the-wzo.html
The Moetes of America relying on Rav Dov Landau says it's "Assur" to vote.
https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/general/2381901/kol-koreh-moetzes-gedolei-hatorah-of-america-it-is-assur-to-vote-in-wzo-election.html
Such extreme opposite points of view from Orthodox "gedolim" are rather confusing to me. Does that mean each side holds the other is a sinner and as such not not real rabbi's?
I would like to focus on reason number 3 and 4 given by the moetzes.
3) "For elected delegates, it is forbidden to join a group of sinners (hischabrus I’resha’im)." How is this any different than joining the "Zionist" Israeli government which is also "a group of sinners"?
4) "The voters are mesayei’a lidei aveirah (assisting in the commission of aveiros)." The orthodax people voting are voting for a party that would fund yeshivos. The voters and representatives are not directly commissioning aveiros. Yet because aveiros are done by the WZO as a group, it is called assising in aveiros. So once again, why is voting and participating in the Isreali elections and government any different?
Although I am happy that many Orthodox jews are not voting in the WZO to fund yeshivos that would avoid the army, i think it reveals the hypocrisy of some of theese rabbi's.
It's pretty funny actually all of their arguing about this when they do not know much about what goes on in Israel.
There's plenty of info on the WZO & Eretz Hakodesh sites.
Much was written addressing your questions by the predecessors of today's Chareidim back in the '50s. Prominent among them is בעיות הזמן by R Reuvein Grozovsky. I suspect that "Otzar Forum" has online discussions on this and similar issues.
I for one agree with the Moetses that anyone looking for daas torah to know if it's OK to vote for Eretz Hakodesh should be told to sit this one out.
As far as the differences between the WZO and voting in the Israeli elections, any one who lives here is a part of the State - s/he is not choosing to be so.
But a standard response to calls to be drafted is, "We were here first, we didn't ask to live in the State!"
(It's a lie- almost all charedim in Israel are descended from people who came after 1948, and almost all the others after 1897- but the claim is made.)
But the latecomers came to join the old timers not the state. The next question is, and enjoy the benefits of the state?
This thread is hogwash, and "we didn't ask for a State" is hogwash.
Why?
Because there is no possibility of reproducing the Charedi on-the-dole lifestyle anywhere else in the world. The Charedi system here is an artifact of the Jewish State.
So a Charedi claiming he doesn't want a Jewish State (not "ask") is not being very consistent. He doesn't really mean it.
(Now there are Charedim who don't take any more from the State. I'm not referring to them, but I'll note that the survival of such purists may depend on them either being a self sufficient community, or dependent on others but small in number. The latter is essentially a continuation of חלוקה, which was a economic system not sustainable for a large population.)
The short answer is that he can say that dismantling the state is worth the price of doing away with the Israeli system and replacing it with the Lakewood etc. systems found in various western democracies.
You can check back if I had time to give the long answer to this your comment and the “At the risk of repeating myself, which of these latecomers would rather now live under (a) the Ottomans, (b) the British or (c) the Arabs?” one.
The same answer in longhand is like this, if you can manage it. If it is beyond your ideology and life's work to consider relinquishing sovereignty, then read no further. Having been educated for years on end and then devoting all your energies to that cause, it might be a horrid sacrilege to consider the other possibility. But we are trying to pick their brains, not yours. You (and anyone else) can stop reading now and I won't bother you (and them) any further.
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Maybe now you and everyone are gone and I'm talking to the walls. Hello, if anyone is there, imagine the POTUS being persuaded to stop his fixation on Canada becoming the 51st state and taking the State of Israel instead, the first new state since the State of Hawaii became the 50th state. Then having all the Israeli Mks agree to to their new roles as state senators of the 51st state. The executive branch of the government headed by governor Bibi and his successors. And sending senators and congressmen to Washington. And making US government money available for Kollel families and plain poor families in Israel as it is in the US.
Or having Israel becoming annexed to a European Robin Hood steal from the rich and give to the poor socialist country where the subsidies are even higher.
Ah, but there's a price, you have less control of government money because they're less dependent on your vote. And you might end up having to go to work after some years in Kollel like often happens in Lakewood and elsewhere. Okay, so that's the end of the Israeli looong term Kollel system and the beginning of a new to you model as has been several decades in the diaspora.
So much if the sovereignty is ceded to a modern government. What if the only choice is to have it ceded to a government of the savages? See my other comment.
At the risk of repeating myself, which of these latecomers would rather now live under (a) the Ottomans, (b) the British or (c) the Arabs?
Which...? Well, there are two groups, those who say נלך לכלא ולא לצהל and those who say נלך למות ולא לצהל. The first group aren't willing to die for their beliefs, (only to sit in jail), while the second are. Both are happy to be where they are and ignore the government's demands on them. But if that option should cease to exist, and they are faced with the hard decision to serve in the צהל under Israeli sovereignty or that the savages take over the country, the second group will take the second choice.
They would be modeling themselves after certain Polish and Lithuanian Jews during WWII who had to choose whether to escape TO the Soviet repression of religion or stay and wait to be murdered by the Germans, and chose the latter. It fascinates me to observe discussions of how this or that irreligious organization asks for credit for saving lives when they subsequently made those they saved irreligious. Some would say no thank you, citing גדול המחטיאו מן ההורגו. Some of these very people would happily give their lives for The Land but can't imagine anyone happily giving their lives for The Religion. That comes off as a bit dull.
An important caveat is that they should be governed by the pre-Zionism savages. Part of the savages' current antisemitism is a result of Zionism “depriving” them of “their” land. Those saying no thank you to Zionism include undoing the antisemitism that it caused. Such as convincing the savages we no longer aspire to sovereignty; hate us less.
That's a better way to frame the discussion, factoring also my other comment that of course a modern government is better than that of the savages.
Another factor is private sponsorship. A group of Chareidi elders toured Chu”l the other year to raise $100,000,000 and failed to get it all but got most of it. If that is repeated, the Israeli as opposed to the Lakewood etc. model could be maintained to whatever degree.
But to vote and take part in governance IS a choice.