The Most Staggering Charedi Belief

This one caught even me by surprise

For many years, I and others have been writing about the enormous economic burden that the charedi community places on Israel. The average non-charedi family contributes over 6000 NIS to the economy every month, which pays for infrastructure and health and defense and welfare and everything else, while the average charedi family removes over 4000 NIS from the economy every month. (See my post The Charedi Chessed Myth.) As Jonathan Rosenblum warned in Mishpacha magazine a decade ago, with the rapid growth of the charedi sector, this is not just something that causes economic harm to everyone else; it’s an existential threat to the country.

You don’t even need to read any studies or know any of the precise details about the economy to realize that charedim drain from it rather than contributing. It’s perfectly obvious that if you have a society in which the vast majority of men are learning in yeshiva through their twenties and thirties and often beyond, and those who end up working do not have a secular education and generally end up as rebbes or similarly low-paying jobs (or in black-market jobs where taxes are not paid), and in which the women work for less hours (because of the children) and generally in lower-paying jobs, then it will be a society that drains from the economy rather than contributing to it. (And that’s of course why they are so desperate to be in the government and willing to support pretty much any policy, as long as they get their massive financial handouts which they so desperately need.)

But what do charedim themselves have to say about this? I’d always assumed that their answer would be something along the lines of it being in everyone’s best spiritual interests to support them, and that Hashem will prevent the charedi sector from crashing the economy. Yet it turns out I was wrong. According to a survey, only about 8% of charedim take that view.

So what do the majority believe? Prepare to be shocked.

A staggering 87% of Charedim believe that the charedi sector contributes to the economy at least as much as everyone else!

And nearly half of these people believe that it contributes even more than everyone else!

And this nonsensical belief appears right at the top. R. Aharon Feldman, of the Council of Torah Sages, the source of scholarship and genius and wisdom, publicly declared that charedim are not being supported by the State, since they pay taxes just like everyone else!

How do they arrive at this absurd belief? Apparently it’s because they think that because they have large families, they buy more stuff, and thus they pay more VAT than others. Of course what this does not take into account is that (A) because household income is significantly lower, per capita expenditure is heavily reduced, resulting in less aggregate VAT paid, and (B) VAT itself only makes up around a quarter of government revenue - most of it comes from income tax (which charedim pay much less of), corporate tax (which charedim are much less involved with), and national insurance (which charedim pay less of and yeshiva/kollel students get a discount on).

The good news is that since all this is a matter of simple facts, it should be possible to educate people about it (although of course many people are resistant even to simple facts if they are uncomfortable for them, and choose to believe dishonest propaganda instead).

Perhaps if charedi society were aware of the tremendous financial burden that they place on the rest of Israel, they might start to understand both why others resent their lifestyle, and how their lifestyle threatens the country. A publicity campaign with posters and leaflets could do it. The question is whether someone will take the initiative to do so. Meanwhile, sharing this post with others would be a good place to start!