Is There A Different Genocide Facing Israel?

From Beit Shemesh to Mishpacha magazine, a bizarre perspective

I walked out of my house the other day to find a brochure warning that the Jews of Beit Shemesh, just like the Jews of ancient Persia, need to “assemble and stand for their lives.” No, this wasn’t about a new front in the war with Hamas, or Hezbollah, or any other Islamic genocidal terrorists. The genocidal threat being referred to was the possibility of the non-charedi candidate winning today’s run-off election for mayor.

This kind of hyperbole further demonstrates how detached the charedi community is from the real dangers facing Israel. But putting that aside for now, let’s analyze further. In the brochure, there was a letter signed by dozens of charedi rabbis from the city, explaining that the threat of genocide is spiritual rather than physical. Kol kiyum haYahadus, “the entire existence of Judaism” in this city, they explain, rests upon this vote.

It’s important to clarify: the non-charedi candidate facing the charedi candidate is the incumbent mayor, Dr. Aliza Bloch. She is a religious woman. She has already been mayor for five years. During that time, the charedi population of the city grew significantly, with her help. There are endless new charedi neighborhoods and new charedi schools and yeshivos. Declaring that “the entire existence of Judaism” depends on her being ousted is nothing short of utter absurdity.

But beyond the hyperbole of a community with a siege mentality that wants ever more power and control, there’s something going on here which is representative of a broader problem.

Mishpacha magazine ran a feature article this past week, “Behold a People,” proudly claiming that the Hamas war has led to a unique period in which there is genuine achdus in Israel. (Of course, this is a fraudulent claim, as there is no genuine achdus without shared communal obligations, but let’s put that aside for now.) Bizarrely, in an article claiming that there is achdus, it acknowledges that many charedim do not even recognize the greatness of the sacrifice being made by Zionist Jews in the IDF:

This is the great hour of the national-religious world, but, on the defensive yet again about the draft law which threatens the yeshivos, the chareidi world in Israel and beyond has been slow to recognize the unfolding story. We should call it what it is: authentic Jewish heroism, both physical and spiritual.

Still, the author hastens to add that this physical and spiritual heroism does not mean that the charedim are not doing something at least as important:

Acknowledging that does nothing to alter the fact that the Torah learned in yeshivos and kollelim is the guarantor of Jewish national survival. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said last week that “without physical existence, there’s no spiritual existence.” It’s a materialistic worldview that we’re taught to see in reverse. Without the Torah, there is no Jewish People.

And here, once again, is the rhetorical sleight-of-hand that is fundamental to charedi discourse. Did you notice it?

It is 100% true that without the Torah, without spiritual existence, there is no Jewish People. But that does not at all equate to “the Torah learned in [charedi] yeshivos and kollelim is the guarantor of Jewish national survival”!!!

There is far more Torah being studied today that at any point in history. There is plenty of Torah learned outside of yeshivos and kollelim, which barely even existed until a few decades ago. There is plenty of Torah learned in national-religious yeshivos and kollelim. There is plenty of Torah learned in charedi yeshivos and kollelim outside of Israel. There is plenty of Torah that can even be learned in charedi yeshivos and kollelim in Israel by a few thousand elite or otherwise exempt learners.

(And all this is aside from the strangeness of the mystical claim that permanent full-time Torah study of charedi men cloistered in the charedi yeshiva world, who are not teaching Torah to the nation, has any effect whatsoever on Jewish national survival.)

Equating Torah, spiritual existence and Jewish national survival with the exemption of every charedi young man from IDF service is as absurd as claiming that the ever-more-charedi city of Beit Shemesh is in the middle of a spiritual genocide. We need serious discourse, not idiotic hyperbole and absurdities.