The Truth Behind Haredi Draft Dodging – Haredim Really Want To Work

45 percent of those getting psychological exemptions from the army are haredi. It turns out that being psychologically unfit enables ultra-Orthodox youths to not only avoid army service, but also not to study in a yeshiva. That is the reason that young ultra-Orthodox men have taken the trouble to go to army psychologists and get the exemption, and not make do with the "Torah as profession" exemption.

Let's invite the ultra-Orthodox to join Israeli society
It is much more important and urgent today to integrate the ultra-Orthodox into society at large, to enable them to integrate into it, to be part of it, to work legally, to earn proper wages and pay taxes, than to force them into olive uniforms.
By Merav Michaeli • Ha’aretz

If anyone still had any doubt about the advisability and necessity of exempting ultra-Orthodox men from army service, statistics were released yesterday showing 45 percent of those getting psychological exemptions are Haredi.

The secular reactions to this figure were the usual shocked responses disparaging the ultra-Orthodox. But if the disparagers would have waited a minute, they would have understood the fascinating truth behind this statistic.

It turns out that being psychological unfit enables ultra-Orthodox youths to not only avoid army service, but also not to study in a yeshiva. That is the reason that young ultra-Orthodox men have taken the trouble to go to army psychologists and get the exemption, and not make do with the "Torah as profession" exemption.

They don't want the Torah to be their profession. They want to work. In essence, young ultra-Orthodox men are using the Israel Defense Forces to get free of the coerced yeshiva study imposed on them by their rabbis and the state.

It should be understood: Contrary to the secular scorn for Talmud study, these studies are extremely difficult and demanding. These are complex texts, huge quantities of material in languages from various periods and a tremendous world of knowledge in of itself. Few people are prepared for these studies, certainly for a way of life that includes only these studies.

So why shouldn't they go to the army? First of all, because their rabbis don't want them to. The ultra-Orthodox rabbis fear the integration of the young men into secular Israeli society. That is why they saw to it that the youths would be educated in a way that makes them view volunteer work in a charity center or observing the Sabbath as activities that serve the country the same as military service.

The few who are interested in serving in the military find it difficult to do so, because the programs for ultra-Orthodox soldiers, especially the Nahal units, are perceived as a solution for those leaving the ultra-Orthodox fold, not really a prestigious or moral option.

In this way a situation has been created in which many ultra-Orthodox men are registered in yeshivas, but in fact work illegally, getting paid under the table. The black economy is so big in the ultra-Orthodox sector that there are those who estimate that no less money changes hands in Bnei Brak than in Tel Aviv "with all its towers," as an ultra-Orthodox friend told me this week.

On the face of it, wholesale exemption of the ultra-Orthodox from army service is really unequal treatment. But they don't serve anyway, and in fact three committees that have examined compulsory military service in the past decade (the Sheffer, Ben Bassat and Brodet panels ) found that the army has a manpower surplus.

It is much more important and urgent today to invite the ultra-Orthodox to join society at large, to enable them to integrate into it, to be part of it, to work legally, to earn proper wages and pay taxes, than to force them into olive uniforms.

Years of ego and ethos wars between the rabbinical and secular establishments leave only two options: die for your country or suffocate yourself under the tent of the Torah. In this matter the two sides are cooperating: in both cases the issue is death, not life.

The state and the hegemony in Israel are still secular, and the state bears the responsibility to free the ultra-Orthodox from compulsory military service, to create more institutions of higher learning for them and enable them to become part the country.

Moreover, Israeli society should take responsibility for its character: acknowledge gains from military service, enable individuals who are gifted in the realms of culture and academics to grow and flourish, and create a society that is an attractive and meaningful alternative worth joining.

Five Times More Haredim Claim Psych Exemption From IDF As Seculars.

Comments

[Menachem Mendel lll]

"...invite the ultra-Orthodox to work legally, to earn proper wages and pay taxes."

The author must be deluded or at the very minimum high on something if he really believes the above will happen in our lifetime.

Work is a 4 letter vort.

Moschiah Uber Alles!

[jancsipista]

hahaha menachem youre a riot funny love youre postings keep it up

[Teddy]

Draft them all,

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/idf-chief-all-israelis-including-arabs-and-haredim-should-do-civilian-service-1.331847

[ah-pee-chorus]

so we should applaud these boys desire to neither learn torah nor contribute to their countrys defense ? should we encourage them to enter the (black-market?)workforce while avoiding the compulsory army service faced by others?
forgive me if i'm not elated by this.

[nobody]

This is what I had thought, but I don't think they should avoid army service in order to work. They should serve in the haredi units, as is their national duty, and then can go and get a job and work. Part of becoming a man is serving one's country, getting a job and providing for a family. Getting a job is only half way there from escaping the emasculation of the yeshivish-kollel cult. The 2nd step is serving one's country with honor and dignity, and there is no point along this path at any time that they need to drop their Torah adherence! The haredi leaders have made the army into a boogeyman, just as work was made into a boogeyman but now has suddenly (by necessity) become not-so-scary now that we all peer under the bed and see that it's much ado about nothing. In time, the army as a concept will also become less scary. But when?

[yodel]

yeah, right . i want to see them work .
prove it !

[David]

so we should applaud these boys desire to neither learn torah nor contribute to their countrys defense ?

We need to be careful with the expression "learn torah". When the Charedim sit on their backsides all day in kollel or yeshivah, drink coffee, go to the mikvah with their buddies, smoke, rort the welfare system and refuse to work, it is not learning torah. If they had true torah learning they would work and fight, support their families and otherwise lead and honourable and dignified existence.

[Yerachmiel Lopin]

I agree that many haredim are trapped by their society and cannot summon the will to defy it.

They are trapped by family ties which will cut them off if they leave. They are also trapped because they have been deprived of the secular education necessary to succeed in the workforce. The state cannot and should not dictate their preferences. But it should end policies that reinforce the hold of their cult leaders. Cut off financial support for their institutions, hold their schools to the minimum standards applied to secular schools. Do not subsidize kollel learning. Demand equal participation in the military for men and women. Where feasible, accommodate religious preferences, and if practical, allow for meaningful alternative service but for a period as long as military service and with the same reserve requirements.

This will doubtlessly shrink the charedi sector. It will force rabbis to earn the respect of adherents who will be economically free to choose their path. Once Kollel institutions are right-sized there will be ways of funding them through private philanthropy. Resentment of charedim will decline.

[nobody]

Go to Israel, yodel, and you will see. More and more haredim are entering the workforce. It's inevitable now - a fait accompli - everyone knows it. Haredi society is changing. It cannot sustain itself otherwise.

Some people will be disappointed that they lose their boogeyman, though. I mean, how can they bash haredim constantly if they start working and serving in the army? Maybe find something else to do, or they'll find something else to pin on them as public enemy #1 for these people.

[A E ANDERSON]

When I studied at ישיבת תומכי תמימים in Kfar Habad, I befriended a number of students from what we called the "Eastern Congregations" (aidot hamizrah). It was common practice among these students, who had every intention of continuing their yeshiva study through marriage, to gain the broadest military service exemptions possible, preferably those on physical and psychiatric grounds rather than relying simply on the limited yeshiva study exemption. Most probably intended on working as professional Habad missionary activists after marriage and probably a brief stint in kolel, as is the Habad custom.

What was interesting was that contrary to the OLDER Habad public persona projected by the movement's publicity arm, that Habadniks do actually perform at least a shortened service + miluim, in actuality, many rank and file habadniks obtained other exemptions, similar to the stam haredim.

Why is this an indictment of Habad? Because Habad spends lots of time and treasure explaining to the Israeli public how it is different from the stam haredim. A key pillar of that hasbara effort is Habad's vaunted willingness to participate in the IDF as active duty and reserve members.

In my time in Lubavitcher yeshiva in Israel, in Kfar Habad and Safed, I can only recall being able to identify a small handful of dyed-in-the-wool habadnikim who actually served after yeshiva/kollel. By the late 1970s, most seemed to mysteriously glide from zal to employment without ever actually having to don a uniform.

Yes, many older Habadnikim had served, as nearly all Israelis once did. But somehow, Israeli Habad, not unlike American Habad, became more sectarian, more reclusive over the decades. What was kosher, even normative in 1948 or 1952 had, by 1978 become treife. The old Habadnik was a human being, a fellow citizen, like every other Jew; the new Habadnik had devolved into a sectarian haredi who lived not in the world of work but that of humra and separation (with one toe perilously dangling into the extremist camp, a la Yitzhok Ginsburgh and the Safed meshichisten).

[Nigritude Ultramarine]

Not mentally stable for military service + Not mentally stable for rigorous study = Mentally stable for the workplace.

Meet your new co-worker, the Unabomber.

That sounds like some fancy organizational psychology to me. Either that or the needle in my BS-Detector is really stuck.