Secular and Dati Apologists for Charedim

A bizarre phenomenon

Like many other former Likud voters, I have grown extremely disillusioned with the party in recent years, and believe it to have grown to be harmful to Israel’s wellbeing and security. Still, many other people, rightly or wrongly, are convinced that Likud leadership (and/or Religious Zionism/ Otzma Yehudit) is crucial to the country’s survival. And while the rest of us are of the view that the Left collapsed after the Second Intifada and even more so after October 7th, these people believe that there is still an existential threat from Leftists, which only a Likud-led government can counter.

The challenge for them is that ever since Bibi betrayed and drove away so many MKs that threatened his power, both from inside and outside Likud, there are not enough Zionist voters who support a Likud/ Religious Zionism/ Otzma Yehudit coalition. They cannot form a Zionist majority government.

And so they have to rely upon the votes and Knesset seats of non-Zionists, i.e. charedim. Charedim are not right-wing either politically or economically, and do not (as a community) believe in civic responsibilities - they do not support the country militarily and they severely weaken it economically. The leadership firmly protests even non-Torah students enlisting, no matter how much hardship this causes everyone else. But they are willing to prop up the government in exchange for the two things that are crucial to them: army exemptions and lots of money to support their deliberate underemployment (even with the current freeze on certain funding due to the army issue, charedi parties still received an astonishing $537,272,535 in coalition funds in the 2025 state budget).

Now, a Likud MK or right-wing voter could simply say that this is a horrible but necessary price to pay in order to ensure Likud’s control of the country’s security. However, this is not a great narrative, either to tell others or to tell oneself. (Bibi himself refuses to ever talk about the problem of charedim not serving and being a collective net drain on the economy.) Accordingly, many Likud MKs and right-wing voters have come up with various different narratives.

One very fine staunch right-wing Zionist that I know told me that while he objects to charedim not serving, it doesn’t really bother him. I pointed out that their lack of service causes many husbands and fathers to be away from their jobs and families in reserve duty - including his own sons. But he neverthless insisted that he simply didn’t care that much.

This seemed strange to me, since in the past I had heard him make statements which showed that it really did bother him. I proceeded to ask him about the rapid growth of the charedi community, which means that twenty years from now we will be in a situation where nearly half of the draft-age men are charedi. How can Israel possibly survive if they refuse to serve and work? He responded that he is confident that the charedi community will change enormously.

This was an even more strange thing to hear. I pointed out that there is absolutely no reason to believe that massive change will happen; even October 7th didn’t make them change - if anything, the net overall movement is in the other direction, towards Peleg - and once this war winds down there will be even less motivation. And why on earth would they change if they are being allowed and even paid not to change?!

His response was that Leftists are the much greater threat, and he is ready to give charedim as many exemptions and as much money as they want in order to keep Bibi as prime minister.

That was the revealing statement. If you’re convinced that it’s essential to have charedim in the government, then you are motivated to persuade yourself that the harm that they cause at present is not such a big deal, and that they do not present a serious threat to our future.

(And if they stop supporting the government, the opposite plays out; a certain popular right-wing Orthodox influencer repeatedly argued that charedi avoidance of army service for yeshiva students is justified, because of the importance of their Torah study, until it looked like they were going to topple the government, at which point he changed his mind and decided that their avoidance of army service is utterly theologically unacceptable.)

Some secular Likud MKs who are particularly devoted to Bibi go even further. They claim that it is actually important to Israel that charedim do not serve or work! They talk about how the Jewish People only survives due to Torah - which is of course true, but which has absolutely nothing to do with needing a hundred thousand charedim age 18-26 in yeshiva, and which ignores the fact that Israel survived in earlier decades without any such thing, and which insultingly negates all the Torah and the eighty hesder yeshivot in the Religious Zionist community. It’s simply bizarre to see secular Likudniks making such a claim, but such is the power of bias.