American Jews Should Know How Ultra-Orthodox Jews Are Tearing Israel Apart

By supporting despicable laws enshrining their exemption from army service, the political leaders of Israel’s million-strong ultra-Orthodox community are betraying a core tenet of mutual responsibility. But the real reason for their indifference to the rest of the Jewish world isn’t about theology at all.

American Jews are looking on in dismay as ultra-Orthodox leaders tear the Jewish state apart.

Israel, after all, is a tiny country with few natural resources. Its Jewish population consists mainly of refugees, and the children and grandchildren of refugees who arrived in Israel from around the globe, speaking more than 50 languages.

How then were these citizens woven into a single national fabric, bound together by a national culture that would ultimately produce a powerhouse democracy? The answer is the miraculous national unity that Israel’s early leaders promoted. It was a unity that, if truth be told, was more illusion than reality, but was no less miraculous on that account.

Israel’s constituent groups often asserted their particular demands and interests, regardless of the common good; but precisely because Israel is a small and vulnerable country, threatened by hostile external forces, in times of crisis its ethnic and religious factions generally bowed to the need for cooperative action and refrained from disrupting the political system.

That was the case, at least, until the election of the current government and events of October 7.

On October 7, Israelis suddenly saw that they could no longer count on their government or the army for fundamental protection from terrorists and murderers, and a collapse of confidence in the political system as the prime minister subordinated the wellbeing of the state to the outcome of his criminal trial.

For the ultra-Orthodox parties, for the thugs and fascists on the far right of the political spectrum, and for the settlers and the occupiers of every stripe, the uncertainties and vulnerabilities of post-October 7 Israel created long-dreamed-of opportunities. The national unity that in the past had imposed discipline on all factions, including the most extreme ones, proved to be too fragile to combat the anger and the pain of October 7.

And the result? Messianists and racists ran amok in the territories. Private Jewish militias operated under the protection of the Israel Police. And Haredim supported laws so despicable and so contemptuous of the people’s army that even they would have thought them impossible a year ago.

All those who have taken advantage of the current situation to promote violence, chaos, and cruelty deserve condemnation, but a special word must be said about the Haredi political class, whose misdeeds are particularly egregious.

Israel has not yet recovered from a two-year war that has left 2,000 dead, and must deal with the profound grief of the families of the fallen soldiers and civilians. In addition, Israeli reservists have faced a near impossible burden of months of service every year, while conscripted soldiers have had their time in uniform extended. Over the summer, the IDF says it urgently needs 12,000 recruits in order to ease the strain on standing and reserve troops, and the only place for these recruits to come from is the Haredi world.

And what have the ultra-Orthodox apparatchiks had to say? “We’ll die before we enlist” is one of the better-known responses, frequently repeated by Haredi officials. So much for unity and commitment to the general welfare.

And this despite the fact that until a few decades ago, never before in Jewish history have rabbinic authorities expected all ultra-Orthodox young men to devote themselves to Torah. Today, there are close to one million ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel, and every third Israeli child now studies in the Haredi school network. There are 100,000 ultra-Orthodox men of draft age who do not serve, and 14,000 Haredi boys who turn 18 and join their ranks every year.

During what is arguably the most difficult security situation in Israel’s history since the War of Independence, does it not make sense to say that a community so big cannot stand aside and say to itself that the state is not its problem?

Does it not make sense to say, if terrorists flood across the border in Gaza or Lebanon, that this is happening not only to secular Jews and Reform Jews but also to ultra-Orthodox Jews?

Does it not make sense to say that things have changed in Israel, and there are simply not enough non-Haredi Jews to deal with Israel’s problems alone?

And, of course, from a broader Jewish perspective, even if there were enough “other Jews” to deal with Israel’s problems alone, Israel needs Haredi Jews to participate.

It is true that the ultra-Orthodox believe that their responsibility is to study Torah, and that doing so protects the Jewish people. But the principle of “all Jews are responsible for one another” refers to army service and practical matters no less than it applies to Torah study. And while the obligation of other Jews is to accept Haredim as they are, the Haredi obligation is to stop relating to the rest of the Jewish world as if they were goyim.

American Jews are not normally especially sensitive to what is happening in the Haredi world in Israel, but this particular case of discarding unity in favor of extremism has caught their attention.

The indifference of Haredi leaders to the plight of Israel’s war dead seems particularly shocking, and a betrayal of the mutual responsibility in the name of which their community so often speaks. The American Jews that I have spoken to have expressed the view that the so-called Haredi commitment to Torah study in fact has nothing to do with observing halakhah (Orthodox Jewish law). Instead, it has to do with rabbis who have lost faith in themselves and their tradition and whose real motivation is prohibiting contact with the outside world.

It has to do as well not with anger at those who ignore Judaism but with support for those who are building a Jewish identity not dependent on observing the 613 mitzvot. They believe it is possible to create a Jewish identity rooted in Jewish history, Jewish tradition, a love for the Land of Israel and the existence of a politically independent, democratic Jewish state.

The Haredim may speak about the apostasy of secular Israelis, but that is not really their concern. What they really care about is the loss of their religious monopoly. And maintaining your monopoly is not a religious act; it is a show of power. And as long as that is their real interest, they will remain not religious leaders but small men with small minds.