If in 20 years 90% of jobs are obsolete, the cost of most inputs is close to zero, the great majority are living on UBI, and only a few tech geniuses actually have anything to do, then we all be like Charedim, except not as good at it.
Well they said most jobs would be obsolete with the rise of machinery but instead there are now more bullshit jobs than ever, so I'll believe it when I see it.
Yes, and not even the plausibly orthodox ones we're supposed to believe are the majority. See the sign on the wall on the right, and every exposed kippah.
There was a photo that mascilbinah shared a while back about Haredim joining the military and it was Chabad. That’s funny, this too. But maybe it’s the availability of photos.
One can imagine a future where we regret giving advanced military training to a large population of religious zealots. I agree that much more needs to be done to bring them into the workforce, and at the same time to reduce Israel's need for a highly militarised society by pursuing peace more effectively.
Not that this will ever happen, but it would seem sensible for the Haredim to borrow a page from Hinduism's "Four Ashrams" and sequester religious study to portions of the lifespan that won't interfere with economic productivity.
They are definitely connected, which is why when Meretz tried to bring a bill to exempt Charedim from army service without having to prove yeshiva enrollment, Degel blocked it. How much of a crux it is, no-one knows, but only one way to find out.
Well it depends on the context - the issue with the Haredim is that they taking much more from the state than they put back in the form of taxes, so in this sense their high birthrate is a problem. And even without the Haredim, the Israeli-Jewish birthrate is higher than elsewhere in the developed world.
According to recent discussions about eliminating the 200NIS note (a proposal that was rejected), it sounds like there is considerable tax fraud (that is, a black market economy) in the Arab sector. When people complain about the Haredim in terms of financial drain or evasion of military service, this issue is rarely brought up. (For those not familiar, Arab citizens of Israel are not required to serve in the IDF, though some do.)
The Haredim threaten (or promise, depending on your point of view) to emigrate if they are subject to the draft like everyone else. If I were a left-of-center Israeli government, I’d let them try.
If some country on earth will accept Jewish Hebrew-speaking non-serving non-workers, other than a hostage-hungry hellhole, then the Haredim are no longer Israel’s burden. If not, the attempt might possibly modify their future position.
There are a lot of military jobs that these people can do without being in combat or as someone out being in trusted as religious zealots with advanced weapons.
It should be obvious that Israel is going to need to increase the size of its active duty military . Them filling administrative slots might free soldiers to be soldiers .
This insanity of 15-20% of the population doing nothing but draining the country financially while others fight and die for them needs to end
Fewer soldiers would die if the purity of arms doctrine were abolished. Conscription is slavery. Conscription is built on the assumption that your body is government property.
Did the peaceful ishmaelites in Hebron get triggered in 1929 because of war fighting techniques by the idf?
They should fear and tremble when IDF is near as opposed to being enabled and empowered to throw rocks endlessly without consequences.
Acting like one is at Berkeley for collegiate protestations when one lives in Israel is how Israel got to the Chelmian dystopia of October 7th which continues onward with the seminary fire two months ago with no FD showing up or rescue teams.
The are lots of Chareidim around the world other than in Israel. In the rest of the world, the work force participation of Chareidim is below average, but not drastically so and those that do work earn well above average earnings (check out the lifestyles in the various Haredi areas of NY, NJ, Belgium and other places). The issue is that the Israeli Charedim view the Israeli secular society as being much more hostile to their lifestyle than the Chareidim around the world view their local secular societies. I believe their view is correct and there are a lot of underlying reasons why this is the case. I don't know if there is any real solution, but that is where I would focus to start. (Getting way too political - Supreme Court reform would be a good place to start. But it won't be nearly enough.)
The Haredim elsewhere know that they couldn't get away with not working because a majority of the population aren't Jewish. That's not the case in Israel. I think most Israelis are happy for the Haredim to live how they want as long as they don't expect non-Haredim to subsidize their lifestyle (and many want them to share the military burden) and don't attempt to impose themselves on others.
Thank you for taking the time to reply as well as for the thoughtful article that I commented on. It is likely that for some people what you are saying is correct, but I KNOW that for a lot more their not working is not because they don't want to, but because they feel they have no ability to work within the existing system. It is incredibly hard to understand the perspectives of others who have core differences in attitudes and underlying beliefs. To solve problems and conflict we have to do that work (to the best of our ability, I don't know if anyone can fully do it properly and that is one of the reasons why I am not sure if this problem really has a solution). I am hoping my statements here can be helpful and provide some perspective and understanding that might help with the very real issue that you are pointing out
There is a solution: All living beings are far better off as individuals, communities and societies by learning to fish rather than being given fish.. at least demand all learning includes math through algebra and global literature. I have many religious friends and I know there will be pushback, however the negotiations can begin with, “You want state money? Basic State Educational requirements are the exchange.”
There is some validity in your basic point, I agree 100% that, "All living beings are far better off as individuals, communities and societies by learning to fish rather than being given fish.."
Your next steps are much more complex.
"at least demand..." Demanding is a weak method, it will likely have some success at the margins, but I think the evidence is that once you push too hard the majority of Chareidim will forgo the state subsidies rather than changing what they are doing
"algebra and global literature." Here you lost me entirely. What does global literature have to do with learning to fish??!! I can point out by names dozens of Chareidi millionaires and billionaires who have never studied a line of global literature (or algebra for that matter) in their lives.
This is the core of the problem. They want to earn money and be self-sufficient, but they don't want secular culture stuffed down their throats. If you make global literature part of your demands, you are guaranteed to lose any hope of dialogue and accommodation.
I am not very hopeful because this can only be solved when both sides have genuine respect for each other and a willingness to truly accommodate the preferences of the others. I am sure that there are some seculars that truly respect Chareidim's lifestyle choices and will do what they can to accommodate, but too many don't for Chareidim to feel safe. The reverse might be even more true. Chareidim have a religious imperative not to respect a secular lifestyle, many recognize that demanding/forcing doesn't work very well (as I mentioned above), but it is understandable that the secular would find too much Chareidi success very threatening.
There are solutions, but unraveling more than 75 years of distrust and conflict on top of the underlying challenges is almost impossible
Maimonides: "Anyone who comes to the conclusion that he should involve himself in Torah study without doing work and derive his livelihood from charity, desecrates [God’s] name, dishonors the Torah, extinguishes the light of faith, brings evil upon himself, and forfeits the life of the world to come, for it is forbidden to derive benefit from the words of Torah in this world.” While you're right that some exceptional people are successful without learning the basics at school, in the world we live in schooling is important, and it's hard to get a decent job without having studied math or English at all. Haredim in the United States know English, and they don't say they have had secular culture shoved down their throats. The fact is that no Jewish community in history has lived the way the Haredim in Israel do.
I am not an expert in interpreting Maimonides or applying his words to this day and age. I will defer to the senior rabbis who make it their life's work to study his words.
My original reason for commenting was that I am in agreement we the basic point that employment rates and education levels among Chareidim are a problem. I am trying to help solve the problem by trying to help others understand some of the causes, so that solutions can be found. The reality is that Chareidim don't join the workforce (or the army) in Israel because they feel it threatens their way of life, not because there is some fundamental chareidi belief in not working.
It is unhelpful to say I don't think they should feel that way. What is helpful is to identify the reasons that they feel that way and see what can be done to change them
It's not about being a minority, it's about the design of the state and incentives thereof. Even in eg England or Belgium (and even moreso the US), Charedim have to pay out of their pockets for school, meaning they need to make money, resulting in tremendous entrepreneurship and industry. In Israel, where all is for the state, and all is from the state, there's no such incentive structure, the state's designed to run everything (This is also why “the start up nation” phenomenom is known to be dying). Outside of Kohelet and a few pro free market individuals, the trajectory Israel is on is maintaining the status quo as a semi socialist country, a suffocated economy, and dependent Charedim.
It's good to see someone else here who gets it. Literally all of Israels economic problems could be solved if conscription was abolished. We the Charedim have shot ourselves in the foot by making the draft into into a sectarian issue instead of a universal human rights issue. What we have is the worst of both worlds: soldiers are forced to serve and are not allowed to actually win wars. I'm tired of hearing the other sides scream at us "our children go to die, why won't yours too?!" The masses our brainwashed into an a priori assumption that the states coercion methods have any legitimacy whatsoever. That is the crux of the issue.
It's an issue affecting all Israelis: conscription is bad for the economy because it delays participation in the work force. The IDF speaker has admitted publicly that the conscription model is bloated and unnecessary. It has no place in a society that claims to be modern and enlightened. There are so many conscripts being assigned busy work. The longer Israeli society refuses to have this discussion, the problems will persist. So many charedim want to work and not live off welfare. The problem is they feel trapped by the system: do I take orders from the anti religious sargeant who will send me on suicide missions, or do I work off the books and hope I don't get caught? That's called entrapment.
“For those who actually experience the consequences - for those whose cities or towns have very little money to invest in parks, schools, and infrastructure because a significant percentage of their population, in principle, lives below the tax bracket, for those whose taxes are higher because other communities choose not to participate in the tax burden, for those whose children spend years in the army defending a community which in principle doesn’t bear the burden of participating in the country’s defense - these are actually real issues. All societies are made up of those who are wealthy, those who are in the middle-class range, and those below. And by definition, societies are meant to provide for all, and individuals certainly can choose to enter high or low paying fields. I am referring to the ideology of an entire community - which denies its children the education necessary to enter the workforce in a significant manner… I believe, as a community, there should be an evaluation of whether those decisions are considerate of the broader population.”
They come into our house and shoot us because our own army and police force forbids actual self defence. If the IDF actually believed in itself it would utterly annihilate the threat. How would our neighbours react? (Not that I care) Probably something like this: "oh sh**! Those Jews are crazy. They actually want to win. We better no f*** with them anymore or they'll destroy us." The Arabs respect self love and unrestrained acts of retribution for attempts at doing harm.
Perhaps economical charts of welfare received vs income or taxes secular Israelis make or pay ? Comparisons of apples to apples? I loved your article, but sometimes charts with comparison numbers may be an efficient and fast method of sharing the facts you’ve shown in your outstanding article.
Thanks for the feedback Jill - I’ll definitely try to include material like that in future similar posts. In the meantime, I suggest looking at the IDI study linked above as it should have some useful graphs.
Good article, but if AI timelines are as fast as they look, Charedim made the right bet and everyone else is going to come out looking like chumps.
Also, you should change the picture. They aren't Charedi.
Can you explain more?
If in 20 years 90% of jobs are obsolete, the cost of most inputs is close to zero, the great majority are living on UBI, and only a few tech geniuses actually have anything to do, then we all be like Charedim, except not as good at it.
Well they said most jobs would be obsolete with the rise of machinery but instead there are now more bullshit jobs than ever, so I'll believe it when I see it.
https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/yes-youre-going-to-be-replaced
This article explains it well. Another option is that we will just be exterminated, in which case Charedim also made the right bet.
Are they Chabad in the photo?
Yes - it was the best Wikipedia Commons could offer me.
Yes, and not even the plausibly orthodox ones we're supposed to believe are the majority. See the sign on the wall on the right, and every exposed kippah.
Re. the picture - this was the best that Wikimedia Commons could offer me!!!! It was either that or the Hebron Yeshiva!
There was a photo that mascilbinah shared a while back about Haredim joining the military and it was Chabad. That’s funny, this too. But maybe it’s the availability of photos.
One can imagine a future where we regret giving advanced military training to a large population of religious zealots. I agree that much more needs to be done to bring them into the workforce, and at the same time to reduce Israel's need for a highly militarised society by pursuing peace more effectively.
Pursuing peace more effectively....🤷
Pontificating platitudes blathered vapidly🤌
Not that this will ever happen, but it would seem sensible for the Haredim to borrow a page from Hinduism's "Four Ashrams" and sequester religious study to portions of the lifespan that won't interfere with economic productivity.
Can’t Haredi men not work without army service? Isn’t that the crux of the problem?
I don't think the two are connected.
They are definitely connected, which is why when Meretz tried to bring a bill to exempt Charedim from army service without having to prove yeshiva enrollment, Degel blocked it. How much of a crux it is, no-one knows, but only one way to find out.
“South Korea rapidly transformed itself from one of the least developed countries into a developed country”
South Korea’s fertility is poor.
I think economies of the future will be positively impacted more by population growth than anything else.
Where would the Israeli population be vs the Palestinians without the Haredim?
Well it depends on the context - the issue with the Haredim is that they taking much more from the state than they put back in the form of taxes, so in this sense their high birthrate is a problem. And even without the Haredim, the Israeli-Jewish birthrate is higher than elsewhere in the developed world.
According to recent discussions about eliminating the 200NIS note (a proposal that was rejected), it sounds like there is considerable tax fraud (that is, a black market economy) in the Arab sector. When people complain about the Haredim in terms of financial drain or evasion of military service, this issue is rarely brought up. (For those not familiar, Arab citizens of Israel are not required to serve in the IDF, though some do.)
For reference: https://www.jns.org/bank-of-israel-rejects-proposal-to-cancel-200-shekel-bill/
The Haredim threaten (or promise, depending on your point of view) to emigrate if they are subject to the draft like everyone else. If I were a left-of-center Israeli government, I’d let them try.
If some country on earth will accept Jewish Hebrew-speaking non-serving non-workers, other than a hostage-hungry hellhole, then the Haredim are no longer Israel’s burden. If not, the attempt might possibly modify their future position.
There are a lot of military jobs that these people can do without being in combat or as someone out being in trusted as religious zealots with advanced weapons.
It should be obvious that Israel is going to need to increase the size of its active duty military . Them filling administrative slots might free soldiers to be soldiers .
This insanity of 15-20% of the population doing nothing but draining the country financially while others fight and die for them needs to end
Fewer soldiers would die if the purity of arms doctrine were abolished. Conscription is slavery. Conscription is built on the assumption that your body is government property.
How do you think our neighbors would react?
Couldn't care less.
You might care if it meant someone coming into your house and shooting you. Or maybe not.
Galut mentality on display, WOW
Did the peaceful ishmaelites in Hebron get triggered in 1929 because of war fighting techniques by the idf?
They should fear and tremble when IDF is near as opposed to being enabled and empowered to throw rocks endlessly without consequences.
Acting like one is at Berkeley for collegiate protestations when one lives in Israel is how Israel got to the Chelmian dystopia of October 7th which continues onward with the seminary fire two months ago with no FD showing up or rescue teams.
The are lots of Chareidim around the world other than in Israel. In the rest of the world, the work force participation of Chareidim is below average, but not drastically so and those that do work earn well above average earnings (check out the lifestyles in the various Haredi areas of NY, NJ, Belgium and other places). The issue is that the Israeli Charedim view the Israeli secular society as being much more hostile to their lifestyle than the Chareidim around the world view their local secular societies. I believe their view is correct and there are a lot of underlying reasons why this is the case. I don't know if there is any real solution, but that is where I would focus to start. (Getting way too political - Supreme Court reform would be a good place to start. But it won't be nearly enough.)
The Haredim elsewhere know that they couldn't get away with not working because a majority of the population aren't Jewish. That's not the case in Israel. I think most Israelis are happy for the Haredim to live how they want as long as they don't expect non-Haredim to subsidize their lifestyle (and many want them to share the military burden) and don't attempt to impose themselves on others.
Thank you for taking the time to reply as well as for the thoughtful article that I commented on. It is likely that for some people what you are saying is correct, but I KNOW that for a lot more their not working is not because they don't want to, but because they feel they have no ability to work within the existing system. It is incredibly hard to understand the perspectives of others who have core differences in attitudes and underlying beliefs. To solve problems and conflict we have to do that work (to the best of our ability, I don't know if anyone can fully do it properly and that is one of the reasons why I am not sure if this problem really has a solution). I am hoping my statements here can be helpful and provide some perspective and understanding that might help with the very real issue that you are pointing out
Thanks Elisha - I appreciate it.
There is a solution: All living beings are far better off as individuals, communities and societies by learning to fish rather than being given fish.. at least demand all learning includes math through algebra and global literature. I have many religious friends and I know there will be pushback, however the negotiations can begin with, “You want state money? Basic State Educational requirements are the exchange.”
There is some validity in your basic point, I agree 100% that, "All living beings are far better off as individuals, communities and societies by learning to fish rather than being given fish.."
Your next steps are much more complex.
"at least demand..." Demanding is a weak method, it will likely have some success at the margins, but I think the evidence is that once you push too hard the majority of Chareidim will forgo the state subsidies rather than changing what they are doing
"algebra and global literature." Here you lost me entirely. What does global literature have to do with learning to fish??!! I can point out by names dozens of Chareidi millionaires and billionaires who have never studied a line of global literature (or algebra for that matter) in their lives.
This is the core of the problem. They want to earn money and be self-sufficient, but they don't want secular culture stuffed down their throats. If you make global literature part of your demands, you are guaranteed to lose any hope of dialogue and accommodation.
I am not very hopeful because this can only be solved when both sides have genuine respect for each other and a willingness to truly accommodate the preferences of the others. I am sure that there are some seculars that truly respect Chareidim's lifestyle choices and will do what they can to accommodate, but too many don't for Chareidim to feel safe. The reverse might be even more true. Chareidim have a religious imperative not to respect a secular lifestyle, many recognize that demanding/forcing doesn't work very well (as I mentioned above), but it is understandable that the secular would find too much Chareidi success very threatening.
There are solutions, but unraveling more than 75 years of distrust and conflict on top of the underlying challenges is almost impossible
Maimonides: "Anyone who comes to the conclusion that he should involve himself in Torah study without doing work and derive his livelihood from charity, desecrates [God’s] name, dishonors the Torah, extinguishes the light of faith, brings evil upon himself, and forfeits the life of the world to come, for it is forbidden to derive benefit from the words of Torah in this world.” While you're right that some exceptional people are successful without learning the basics at school, in the world we live in schooling is important, and it's hard to get a decent job without having studied math or English at all. Haredim in the United States know English, and they don't say they have had secular culture shoved down their throats. The fact is that no Jewish community in history has lived the way the Haredim in Israel do.
I am not an expert in interpreting Maimonides or applying his words to this day and age. I will defer to the senior rabbis who make it their life's work to study his words.
My original reason for commenting was that I am in agreement we the basic point that employment rates and education levels among Chareidim are a problem. I am trying to help solve the problem by trying to help others understand some of the causes, so that solutions can be found. The reality is that Chareidim don't join the workforce (or the army) in Israel because they feel it threatens their way of life, not because there is some fundamental chareidi belief in not working.
It is unhelpful to say I don't think they should feel that way. What is helpful is to identify the reasons that they feel that way and see what can be done to change them
It's not about being a minority, it's about the design of the state and incentives thereof. Even in eg England or Belgium (and even moreso the US), Charedim have to pay out of their pockets for school, meaning they need to make money, resulting in tremendous entrepreneurship and industry. In Israel, where all is for the state, and all is from the state, there's no such incentive structure, the state's designed to run everything (This is also why “the start up nation” phenomenom is known to be dying). Outside of Kohelet and a few pro free market individuals, the trajectory Israel is on is maintaining the status quo as a semi socialist country, a suffocated economy, and dependent Charedim.
It's good to see someone else here who gets it. Literally all of Israels economic problems could be solved if conscription was abolished. We the Charedim have shot ourselves in the foot by making the draft into into a sectarian issue instead of a universal human rights issue. What we have is the worst of both worlds: soldiers are forced to serve and are not allowed to actually win wars. I'm tired of hearing the other sides scream at us "our children go to die, why won't yours too?!" The masses our brainwashed into an a priori assumption that the states coercion methods have any legitimacy whatsoever. That is the crux of the issue.
The problem with your argument is that Israel does require an army and without conscription it might not have one.
Then it doesn't deserve to exist. If you have to force people to defend a country, it can not justify it's existence.
Interesting point - I’ll think about this and perhaps write more about it in the future.
And in any case my piece was about the issue of Haredi participation in the labor force rather than conscription.
It's an issue affecting all Israelis: conscription is bad for the economy because it delays participation in the work force. The IDF speaker has admitted publicly that the conscription model is bloated and unnecessary. It has no place in a society that claims to be modern and enlightened. There are so many conscripts being assigned busy work. The longer Israeli society refuses to have this discussion, the problems will persist. So many charedim want to work and not live off welfare. The problem is they feel trapped by the system: do I take orders from the anti religious sargeant who will send me on suicide missions, or do I work off the books and hope I don't get caught? That's called entrapment.
There’s nothing stopping non-serving Haredim from getting a job.
Rav David Brofsky, Yeshivat Har Etzion:
“For those who actually experience the consequences - for those whose cities or towns have very little money to invest in parks, schools, and infrastructure because a significant percentage of their population, in principle, lives below the tax bracket, for those whose taxes are higher because other communities choose not to participate in the tax burden, for those whose children spend years in the army defending a community which in principle doesn’t bear the burden of participating in the country’s defense - these are actually real issues. All societies are made up of those who are wealthy, those who are in the middle-class range, and those below. And by definition, societies are meant to provide for all, and individuals certainly can choose to enter high or low paying fields. I am referring to the ideology of an entire community - which denies its children the education necessary to enter the workforce in a significant manner… I believe, as a community, there should be an evaluation of whether those decisions are considerate of the broader population.”
They come into our house and shoot us because our own army and police force forbids actual self defence. If the IDF actually believed in itself it would utterly annihilate the threat. How would our neighbours react? (Not that I care) Probably something like this: "oh sh**! Those Jews are crazy. They actually want to win. We better no f*** with them anymore or they'll destroy us." The Arabs respect self love and unrestrained acts of retribution for attempts at doing harm.
Perhaps economical charts of welfare received vs income or taxes secular Israelis make or pay ? Comparisons of apples to apples? I loved your article, but sometimes charts with comparison numbers may be an efficient and fast method of sharing the facts you’ve shown in your outstanding article.
Thanks for the feedback Jill - I’ll definitely try to include material like that in future similar posts. In the meantime, I suggest looking at the IDI study linked above as it should have some useful graphs.