Home Improvements
Reservists vs. Charedim: finally some good news
Six months ago I wrote a post, The Lottery Farce, about Israel’s housing lottery. In general, governments should allocate resources equally and fairly. For some mysterious reason, Israel has a government-sponsored housing lottery, which massively subsidizes an apartment for the few thousand people lucky enough to win it. (Meanwhile, the removal of thousands of units from the open market reduces supply for non-winners and drives up the price for everyone else.) But if you’re going to isolate a group of people that are worthy of being given the opportunity for amazing extra help, then surely this is an opportunity to make sure that the most worthy of people are given this opportunity.
Beginning in 2024, approximately 20% of units were reserved for reservist soldiers; in 2025, this share increased to 36%. This may sound good, until you realize that these are actually the only people that should be eligible. Why give these huge benefits to someone who doesn’t contribute to the country at all, when you can give it to someone who has contributed immensely?
And if you’re going to give out huge rewards via a lottery rather than evenly distributing them among the deserving, it should be to those who the government requires to participate in another lottery: the lottery of life. Combat soldiers are not only contributing and sacrificing for the country, they are also risking everything - their jobs, their family relationships, their health, and of course their very lives.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Housing, gangster Yitzchok Goldknopf of United Torah Judaism, stated that combat soldiers should receive less benefits than kollel students, who have a “harder life.” Note that aside from it being factually nonsense that they have a harder life, the moral logic is fundamentally flawed. Why should anyone have to help kollel students - their hardships are self-inflicted, and are not due to their helping others!
But Goldknopf wasn’t just saying what he believed, he was acting on it. Michael Eisenberg demonstrated that the exact opposite of prioritizing those who serve and contribute was happening. Goldknopf was manipulating the lottery to ensure that charedim get far more of the apartments that are part of the lottery than do anyone else. Subsequently, he was even caught on camera admitting to this manipulation! Goldknopf pulled it off by arranging for a massively disproportionate number of the apartments allocated to the lottery to be in cities that are predominantly charedi and only available for lottery applicants who were local residents. That ends up being a $200 million gift for those who avoid serving the country, paid for by those who do. (Of course, this is over and above the billions of dollars transferred by non-charedi taxpayers to the charedi community every year.)
Well, now there is some good news. While unfortunately the disproportionate allocations to predominantly charedi cities were not reversed, the percentage of allocations to reservists was increased to 50%, with half of those specifically for combat soldiers. Furthermore, following a High Court ruling, the lottery was closed to those who have refused to respond to draft orders. It’s still far from where it should be, and Bibi has been working hard to undo any negative consequences for charedim who don’t serve, but it’s a lot closer to a just situation. Baruch Hashem for the High Court!
Naturally, the charedim are furious that people who serve in the IDF and make sacrifices for the country should get more (from the non-charedi taxpayers) than charedim who don’t serve. Chareid media outlets declared that this is “redifah (lethal persecution) of the Torah world.”
Also in response to this, R. Tzemach Mazuz, rosh yeshiva of Kisei Rachamim, described the Attorney-General as “the Jezebel of our era.” Jezebel, for those who don’t recall, was the most wicked woman in Tanach, who ended up being defenestrated and eaten by dogs. Reassuring his audience, R. Mazuz added that there is no reason to think that this will prevent Kollel students from getting apartments, because “when Hashem closes one door, he opens a thousand others.”
I’m just left with a question. If charedim believe that any attempts to harm them result in Hashem giving them even more opportunities, why do they get so angry at those they see as trying to harming them?