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Driven by rising numbers and political influence, ultra-Orthodox parties are pushing for greater autonomy, with far-reaching implications for the country.
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By Isabel Kershner
JERUSALEM — To maintain his new government, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is making significant concessions to far-right political parties on Palestinian issues, judicial independence and police powers, but also less notorious moves on behalf of a key member of his coalition: the parties that make up the developing ultra-Orthodox public.
Members of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox network have long enjoyed benefits not available to many other Israeli citizens: exemption from military service for Torah students, government subsidies for those studying full-time devotees instead of work, and separate schools that get public investment even though their systems teach government-mandated subjects.
These benefits have fueled resentment among giant segments of the more secular public, and Israeli leaders have said for years that their goal is to attract more ultra-Orthodox, known as haredim, to the workforce and society.
But the series of events through Netanyahu in recent weeks as he assembled the country’s highest right-wing, religiously conservative government suggests that haredi leaders are running to cement the community’s special status, with far-reaching implications for Israeli society and economy.
Netanyahu promised ultra-Orthodox leaders a new, separate city for the haredim where the haredim lifestyle would consult planning. He agreed to increase investment for haredi seminary scholars and provide access to government positions without a university degree. And he promised a wide diversity of government subsidies for the Haredi school system.
“It is very transparent that the Haredi leaders who signed those agreements aim to strengthen Haredi autonomy and integration,” said Professor Yedidia Stern, president of the Jewish People Policy Institute, an independent think tank.
Outgoing Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman, an outspoken critic of the haredi parties, said the charge for any additional investment promised for haredi reasons would amount to about NIS 20 billion (about $5. 7 billion) a year and “an attempt to sink the Israeli economy. “
The promises to haredim are part of a series of tweaks the Netanyahu-led coalition seeks to implement, adding judicial reviews that would allow parliament to overturn Supreme Court decisions and give politicians more influence over the appointment of judges. The coalition has the numbers in parliament to push through the measures, which it plans to introduce soon in the form of legislation, as long as the other components remain united, but may also face demanding situations in the courts.
The new coalition government also promised an uncompromising strategy to the Palestinians, with some senior officials eventually backing Israel’s annexation of the occupied West Bank, territory the Palestinians see as part of a long-term state for them, as well as an acceleration of the Jewish settlement structure there.
In one of his first acts as Israel’s national security minister, ultranationalist Itamar Ben-Gvir last week saw a volatile Jerusalem sacred to Jews and Muslims, defying threats of violent repercussions and drawing a furious reaction from Arab leaders and foreign condemnation.
Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, was expelled from the workplace 18 months ago and replaced by a tenuous coalition of anti-Netanyahu forces from right and left, but also from haredi and far-right parties. The fifth election in less than 4 years brought Mr. Netanyahu and his far-right ultra-Orthodox bloc to power, winning a combined 64-seat majority in the 120-seat parliament.
The ultra-Orthodox parties won the most parliamentary seats in years in the November elections, reflecting the immediate expansion of this largely insular network and making them pillars of M’s government. Netanyahu.
To the loyalty of ultra-Orthodox parties, Netanyahu also agreed to create special budgets for public transport in haredi spaces and pass a law enshrining the examination of Torah as a national value, similar to compulsory military service. Another moot law will be introduced to formalize the long-standing Agreement granting exemption from conscription to Torah students, further undermining the once-sacred precept of universal conscription.
Haredi society is not homogeneous, and some more fashionable haredim enroll in the military, seek secular higher education to prepare for the job market, and even work in cutting-edge technology.
Most haredi women have jobs, albeit poorly paid. But only a part of ultra-Orthodox men manage to work. Critics say the promise to increase stipends for Torah scholars will deter them from joining the workforce.
Haredi youth now make up a quarter of all Jewish youth in the school formula and one-fifth of all students in the country, whether Jewish or Arab.
“When the Haredim were a small group, it was fine,” Professor Stern said. “Now it’s impossible. Allowing this to continue despite the large number of haredim means that the country will not be able to function. “
In order to build at least one domain of employment for the haredim, their representation in public government and business, a university degree will no longer be a criterion for some, usually unspecified, jobs. (One of the few examples cited art therapists, who are at the top of the call for still few in the ultra-Orthodox community. )
Diplomas such as those awarded to graduates of college’s devoted women’s seminaries will be equivalent to a university degree, as will five years of professional experience. At present, the vast majority of ultra-Orthodox high school graduates do not meet the minimum requirements for university admission.
The Torah will be officially identified as higher education, and yeshiva students will get the same 50 percent reduction in public transportation as college students.
Haredi politicians have long promoted a conservative social schedule that rejects the concept of civil or same-sex marriage and opposes gay rights, as well as paintings and the provision of public transportation on Saturday. And their political involvement has alienated many Jews who practice Judaism’s less strict bureaucracy.
New concessions accepted through Netanyahu, which add proposals to the Law of Return, which lately grants safe haven and automatic citizenship to foreign Jews, their spouses and descendants who have at least one Jewish grandparent, are already straining Israel’s ties with many in the Jewish diaspora. .
More than a portion of the country’s haredim live in Jerusalem or Bnei Brak, just east of Tel Aviv, or in the ultra-Orthodox suburbs of those cities, according to the annual statistical survey by the Israel Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, and poverty. Rates are higher than in the general population.
Haredim make up about thirteen percent of the population, yet Haredim families have an average of seven children, more than double the number of an average Israeli family. If current trends continue, only one in 4 Israelis and about one in 3 Israeli Jews are expected to be Haredi until 2050.
Another engagement through Netanyahu with haredi parties would allow rabbinical courts to arbitrate on civil matters if both sides of a dispute agree, meaning that some hard work disputes, for example, can be resolved under the old devout law.
Secular Israelis have been alarmed by haredi demands they see as an additional encroachment on the public sphere, adding demands for more gender-separated spaces to comply with modesty rules.
Yitzhak Pindrus, a senior representative of the two-haredi alliance of Judaism, tried to downplay the concerns, nothing had replaced in the haredi mentality.
“Our demands have been the same since 1977,” he said in an interview. “We are outdated: 2500 years. We are not converting our demands as a result of the elections.
“If 3 percent of beaches were enough, we now want more if we make up 20 percent of the population,” he said, referring to the practice of reserving gender-segregated beach spaces for haredim. “The concept is to approach 6%,” he said, insisting that it’s not about more autonomy, but about gathering the wishes of as many other people as possible in the community.
The separatist technique of haredi politicians has a topic of debate within the haredi network itself.
The coalition agreements for the new government “lay the foundation for the two-state solution: the State of Israel and the State of Shtetl,” Eliyahu Berkovits, an assistant for haredi studies at the Israel Democracy Institute, wrote in a recent article, the Yiddish Word for Classical Jewish Peoples in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust.
The “haredi enclave” has grown greatly, he wrote, and “is about to become an extra, autonomous state. “
In an interview, Berkovits said Haredi politicians act as if they constitute a small minority that wants to protect its own interests. “The haredi network wants to perceive that we are bigger,” he said, “and that we are guilty of Israel’s future. “
He said he was proud of his network and praised its “incredible values. “But, he added, “it’s less difficult to do what you’ve done in the last 20 years than to reconsider everything. “
As the number of active and fashionable haredim increases, so do stalwart and extremist factions. In recent weeks, extremists in Jerusalem have vandalized an optician’s shop to obtain images of women wearing glasses in their advertisement and rebelled against the arrest of a haredi man. Suspected of setting fire to a cell phone store, seriously injuring an 11-year-old mother who was struck by a burning dumpster.
The haredi technique over the years was that of an “exile mentality,” said Israel Cohen, a political commentator for Kol Berama, a haredi radio station, and aimed to stay away from going out to influence society at large.
Now a “haredi-Israeli culture” has developed, he said, and “haredim needs Israel to be more Jewish. “They need Israel for more Haredi.
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