Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
The killing of 14-year-old Yosef Eisenthal, run over Tuesday evening by a bus during an anti-recruitment protest in an Orthodox neighborhood in West Jerusalem, has focused attention on one of the most controversial issues in Israeli politics: the exemption of Ultra-Orthodox Jews in military service.
Many analysts say the scale of the rift is such that it poses an existential threat to the right-wing coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has so far weathered multiple accusations of genocide in Gaza and criticism over unilateral attacks on its regional neighbors.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 elementsend of list
Eisenthal was among tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, protesters when he was hit by the bus at an intersection in the Romema neighborhood. Three other protesters, all teenagers, were injured in the incident. Israeli media report that the bus driver had already been attacked by demonstrators before driving into the crowd.
Netanyahu issued a statement Wednesday morning, promising that the incident would be fully investigated and calling for “restraint to prevent the atmosphere from becoming further inflamed so that, God forbid, we do not have further tragedies.”
Anger over the exemption of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox students dates back to early attempts in 1999 to formalize what was previously a de facto agreement, with Haredi leaders arguing that the young men should be allowed to focus on religious studies full-time to preserve Jewish law and tradition, rather than being drafted to join the army, as other Israeli Jews are.
However, legal challenges to this exemption, most recently from the Supreme Court late last year requiring ultra-Orthodox recruitment to be imposed, combined with reports of labor shortages linked to Israeli military conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran, have brought the issue back into the spotlight.
Polls show broad public support for ending the exemption, a notion publicly supported by Netanyahu. But two of the prime minister’s main coalition partners, United Torah Judaism (UTJ) and Shas, have repeatedly threatened to withdraw from government or vote against the state budget, thereby triggering new elections, unless a law is passed preserving ultra-Orthodox exemptions or limiting the conscription of students into Israel’s ultra-Orthodox schools, known as yeshivas.
“You have to remember that these are not political parties in the conventional sense,” said Yossi Mekelberg, a senior consultant at Chatham House, characterizing UTJ and Shas as operating in the interest of their community and not society as a whole. “They are elected as parties to function as pressure groups within the Knesset. [parliament]. They know that no one outside their own ultra-Orthodox community will vote for them, and they really have no interest in persuading them to do so. »
“All they have is their own religious base, with a proportion in society that continues to grow,” Mekelberg added. “Preserving that base, in large part, means keeping them out of the military, where they might face different kinds of approaches to religion, including secularism, that their rabbis fear will tempt and corrupt them.” »
Bitter debate
Despite the limited number of deaths the Israeli military has suffered compared to the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed in its genocidal war on Gaza, anger over the apparent exemption of Haredi communities from conscription has grown within a society fracture after two years of incessant conflict.
A fall poll last year showed that an overwhelming number of Israeli respondents considered the societal schism between secular and ultra-Orthodox Israelis to be one of the most controversial issues facing contemporary Israel.
In response to Eisenthal’s death, UTJ’s Meir Porush told reporters: “It is impossible to ignore the fact that more than once during demonstrations by the ultra-Orthodox public there is a public atmosphere according to which it is permissible to harm demonstrators. »
“The situation in which incitement to hatred against the ultra-Orthodox public is widespread makes Jews fear for their safety in the Land of Israel,” Porush continued. “I call on all public leaders to call for an end to violence and incitement against the ultra-Orthodox public. »
“There is very little sympathy for the ultra-Orthodox within much of Israeli society,” said Ori Goldberg, an Israeli political analyst. “They’ve gone to great lengths to distance themselves from the rest of the population, so most people don’t really care…Israeli society is broken. »
Divider
Since Israel’s creation in 1948, a handful of highly qualified ultra-Orthodox scholars have been granted exemptions from Israel’s mandatory military service, which applies to most Jewish citizens. However, over the years the influence of influential religious parties, such as Shas and UTJ, has led to a significant increase in the number of military exemptions, currently estimated at around 90% of the total. 13,000 ultra-Orthodox men who reach conscription age each year.
While Shas and UTJ hold just 18 seats in parliament, the fractured nature of Israeli politics and Netanyahu’s reliance on the right have given the ultra-Orthodox a disproportionate level of influence.
“It’s true that they don’t have many seats, but Netanyahu absolutely needs their support to maintain his coalition and remain prime minister,” Mitchell Barak, an Israeli pollster and former political adviser to several Israeli politicians, including Netanyahu, told Al Jazeera. “It is true that the ultra-Orthodox parties also need Netanyahu and his government to have power and prominence in their own communities. But the issue of the project is paramount. For them, if they lose that, they will have nothing.”
Growing influence
Throughout Israel, the Haredi are a growing social and political group, with their political weight and the influence of religion in society increasing as their numbers increase.
In 2009, Haredi made up 9.9 percent of the Israeli population. By 2065, they are expected to represent more than 30 percent. Along with this growth, ultra-Orthodox parties are ensuring that their members’ interests are served and that they remain loyal: all of which could pose problems for Israel’s future.
“Parties like Shas and UTJ rely on the religion of their young members and depend on social benefits,” Mekelberg said.
“It’s a serious problem because their numbers are increasing,” he added. “An ultra-Orthodox family will typically have six to seven children. It is unlikely that even one of the boys will study core subjects like math or science. Instead, they will go to yeshiva and live on their benefits. This is a real demographic problem. And it’s not a future problem. It’s a problem that’s happening now.”
