Jewish Obfuscation

Is there an achdus problem, and if so, what is it?

To the Editors:

Thank you for another excellent issue of Jewish Action. It would be truly wonderful if your magazine could be a weekly instead of a quarterly; it presents perspectives and voices that are sadly lacking from the existing Orthodox weekly magazines. There is, however, to be some frustrating ambiguity in one important article and some disinformation in another.

Rabbi Hauer’s lead article was about the importance of unity and bemoaning the lack of it. While he did not specify which deficiency exists today, he described the situation as reverting to the acrimony over the judicial reform and differing visions of Israel. Yet in fact, that dispute has barely resurfaced. Instead, one of the leading disputes in Israel today is with regard to the wholesale avoidance of army service by the charedi community. And certainly this is the dispute most relevant to readers of Jewish Action, many of whom support the charedi way of life and/or its institutions financially and politically (either deliberately or effectively).

It is unclear if this is the dispute about which Rabbi Hauer says that we should live with a “pragmatic pluralism.” Rabbi Hauer powerfully speaks about how it is with the soldiers of the IDF that we find commitment to the wellbeing of every Jew, and he states that participation in the defense of Israel is invaluable. As Rabbi Dr. Ari Zivotofsky demonstrates in his excellent article about milchemes mitzvah, participation in the current war is not merely invaluable but halachically obligatory. And certainly even aside from a technical halachic standpoint, it is a basic traditional Jewish value, as Rabbi Hauer notes, to come to the aid of Jews in distress. This has not happened with the charedi community, whose response to the war has largely been one of inaction.

The reader of Jewish Action is therefore left with a question. When Rabbi Hauer says that “genuine respect is due to the approaches of others faithful to Orthodox halacha and mesorah,” does he mean to include or exclude the charedi community? Surely an issue as critical as this requires clarification.

Likewise, Rabbi Hauer says that pluralism reaches its limit only in situations where it “will change the character of the State or community in a way that affects all of us.” Yet this is most certainly the case with the charedi avoidance of army service (and of deliberate under-employment), which enormously affects everyone else. The IDF is experiencing a serious manpower shortage, which due to the charedi refusal to enlist, means that everyone else has to spend much longer away from their yeshivot and jobs and families, and will have to do this on a growing basis. In the case of an armed uprising by millions of Palestinians, the charedi refusal to enlist would spell absolute disaster. And none other than charedi journalist Jonathan Rosenblum has warned that the chareidi lack of participation in the professional workforce threatens to make Israel’s economy unable to fund its defense needs.

So is this a case where Rabbi Hauer is saying that pluralim has reached its limit? Again, surely this requires clarification.

But if Rabbi Hauer’s article contains ambiguity, Rabbi Lawrence Keleman’s article can only be described as disingenuous. He begins with an inspirational description of all the reservists who flew back to Israel to fight, and the material support for the IDF provided by Jews both around the world and in Israel. But then he states that “kindness flowed bidirectionally between Israel’s religious and secular populations.”

Now, the word “religious” is far too ambiguous to use in reference to Jews in Israel. Religious Jews in Israel fall into two very different categories: national-religious (dati) and ultra-Orthodox (charedi). And while the dati community excelled at showing kindness to everyone, with both outstanding military sacrifices and material support for families affected by the war, the charedi community did not. There were no charedim flying back to Israel to fight. And there was very little material support extended. Indeed, while there were some extraordinary charedi individuals who rallied material support for the IDF, these were very much the exception rather than the rule. Rabbi Dov Landau, the leading Litvishe charedi rabbinic authority in Israel, condemned such individuals rallying material support for the IDF and even objected to visiting injured soldiers in hospital (while in the US, most charedi rabbinic leaders opposed rallying support for Israel in Washington). Support for the IDF, support for the families of reservists, support for injured soldiers in hospital, support for bereaved families, support for the farms without workers, even support for the families of hostages, was overwhelmingly provided by secular and dati Jews, with barely any charedi participation.

When Rabbi Keleman later talks about religious (by which he then means charedi) kindesses for the rest of Israel, he talks about kiruv - giving out Shabbat candles and challot. While that’s a nice thing, it is farcical to compare it to the type of kindness done by non-charedim. And when Rabbi Keleman quotes a charedi woman who says that “this is called unity, brotherhood and connection,” that’s adding insult to injury. No, giving out challot while the families in your community insist on continuing life as normal without any military or material responsibilities (and being paid to do so) while everywhere else people are leaving their yeshivot and jobs and families for months at a time to risk life and limb is not called unity or brotherhood or connection.

There is a critical and very dangerous lack of achdus in the Jewish people, and it’s between the charedi community and everyone else. There can be legitimate differences of opinion about how best to tackle it, but obfuscating its existence does not help.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Dr. Natan Slifkin

NOTE TO MY READERS: Change does not happen as a result of one person saying something; it happens as a result of lots of people saying something. You can contact Jewish Action on this page.

Please forward my posts to people for whom you feel it would be beneficial. A full list of my posts on the topic of IDF service is at Torah and Army: The Big Index