The Haredi community is full of kindness, but it is merciless. The rabbis set up community's boundaries. Anyone who diverges from the strict community line is condemned, and the ability of them and their family to continue living in the community suffers a serious blow.
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The violence in Haredi towns plays badly, but this isn't the real challenge facing the Haredim when it comes to Israeli society. Even when COVID is a thing of the past, the walls the Haredim built between themselves and the rest of society will remain high, and COVID has dug a deep moat around them. Two states for one people. The low point of the violent riots during the third lockdown is a symptom of the real problem. After two decades of attempts to integrate the Haredim into Israeli life, the results are limited. The main trend in mainstream Haredi society is still one of isolationism and enclosure. Even at the price of people's lives, as we have seen over the course of this past year. The conclusion is that Israel cannot allow itself the privilege of allowing Haredi isolationism to continue.
Israel is currently home to 1.175 million Haredim, who make up 12.5% of the population. Haredi society is very young, with the median age only 16. The average birth rate among Haredim women is 6.6 children, apparently the highest in the western world. The community's size is giving it more influence than it had in the past over Israel's society and economy, an influence that has grown along with the rapid demographic expansion.
By the early 2000s, it was clear that it was vital to integrate them to make Israel more egalitarian and allow it to flourish, or at least retain the quality of life of a leading western nation. Since then, the government has passed a series of laws and cabinet decisions and project initiatives designed to bring Haredim into the army, the economy, higher education, and society at large. Those behind these ideas hoped that if the Haredim integrated, the ideological and social gap between them and the other Israelis would narrow, and the walls that surrounded the community would come down.
On some issues, the efforts had limited success, while completely failing when it came to other matters. Let's start with the demand for an "equal sharing of the burden" – the demand that Haredi yeshiva students serve in the IDF. After 20 years of ping-pong that went back and forth between the Knesset and the Supreme Court, deals that were made and then crumbled, and the IDF's attempts to recruit Haredim, a few months ago the naked truth was revealed: Almost no Haredim serve in the military. What's more, most of them think that even Haredim who do not devote their time to Torah study shouldn't have to serve in the IDF. The value of serving the state, which is so central to the Israeli experience, is of no interest to the Haredim.
An effective political force
The second challenge is bringing Haredim into the workforce. On this issue, government policies and market forces saw some success. While strides were made in bringing Haredi women into the labor market and 77% of Haredi women of working age are now employed, compared to 84% of non-Haredi Jewish women of working age, the percentage of Haredi men who work remains extremely low. While 88% of working-age non-Haredi Jewish men are in the workforce, only 52.5% of Haredi men of working age are. In addition, Haredi men who do work earn dramatically less than non-Haredi Jewish men, with the average monthly salary for a Haredi man comprising only 56% of what a non-Haredi Jewish man earns. All this keeps Haredi society trapped in desperate poverty. Over half (52%) of Haredim, and 60% of Haredi children, live beneath the poverty line, compared to 9% of the children in the non-Haredi Jewish sector.
Attempts to integrate Haredim into other areas of life have also failed. Initiatives to steer them toward higher education have led to an increased number of Haredi college and university students, but still only a small number seek it out.
Meanwhile, the Haredi school system, particularly the boys' schools, do not train them for the job market or for Israeli citizenship. The vast majority of men who go through the Haredi school system are ignorant of anything except the Torah, and they have little ability to bridge those education gaps when they are in their 20s and 30s. Neither Haredi boys nor girls learn civics, and they have an insufficient understanding of "Israeliness." Some Haredi schools still have an anti-Zionist orientation, which also influences the Haredi perception of their place and their obligations as citizens of Israel.
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There is a reason for these failures and why the Haredi are not integrating into Israeli society. Haredi society is defined by and exists because of its isolationism, which serve to maintain its values, but have turned into a value unto themselves. The more Israel tried to bring them into society, the more Haredi spiritual and political leaders take a contrarian approach and fight the state's attempts to include them.
This plays out along two main axes: the spiritual-communal and the economic-political. Haredi society, as we have said, is full of kindness, but lacks mercy. The fences are put up by the rabbis. Every Hassidic rebbe encloses his own court and every yeshiva head or Torah authority has his own audience. The rabbinical and political leadership condemns anyone who steps out of line immediately. To maintain a Haredi lifestyle, and prevent the members of the community from starving, the Haredim wield their political power effectively, securing massive budgets for their institutions and their Torah scholars.
At the same time, the Haredim have developed a worldview according to which, whether Israeli society recognizes it or not, they are the ones who keep Israel going. They way they see it, the other Israelis work in the material world – the army, the economy – to serve the holy purpose of the Haredi way of life.
Other Israelis' lives
As it did with so many things, COVID intensified these trends and put them into the spotlight. This time, in order to maintain Haredi autonomy and keep the walls intact, lives had to be sacrificed. Lives in the community, which even now is seeking shocking rates of new cases, as well as the lives of other Israelis. Throughout this past year, over and over, even after the gravity of the pandemic was made clear, many Ashkenazi Haredi leaders opted to pay that price. Those choices have considerable support among the Haredim themselves. Polls show that throughout the crisis, the only people who were trusted by the Haredim to handle it were the rabbis.
The polarization between Haredim and the rest of Israeli society is expressive of a much deeper divide. Integrating Haredim into the economy and other aspects of Israeli life is vital if the country's society, values, and economy are to flourish. If the Haredim continue to shut themselves off from the rest of us, it will be disastrous. Experience teaches us that the only thing that has caused Haredim to integrate into mainstream society to any extent is an economic policy that does not support the Haredi lifestyle. At the same time, even with the Haredi community, there are forces that seek integration and change, and they could also have an influence.
To turn things around, we need a determined political leadership. In the upcoming election, rather than focusing on the question of "yes" or "no" to Netanyahu, anyone who aspires to lead Israel must make it clear to us, the Israelis, who they intend to approach this challenge.
