In their eyes, they have full legitimacy to exploit to the fullest whatever can be extracted from their overlord: the Israeli taxpayer.
Riots by Haredi extremists over the presence of female soldiers in Bnei Brak are a distilled reflection of the gaping chasm between the State of Israel and the Haredi autonomy that has grown within its very heart. This is yet another expression of a head-on collision between the State of Israel—whose citizens, for the most part, serve in the army, carry the tax burden and have buried their dead throughout the war—and a community that lives as an autonomy of its own design in every value-based and practical sense.
Except, of course, when it comes to utilizing the state’s resources and budgets.
These events are the direct result of a Haredi worldview that sees the State of Israel as just a tool for strengthening and preserving the Haredi ghetto. This is the worldview that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Knesset member Boaz Bismuth seek to enshrine in law through the draft-evasion bill they are advancing in the Knesset.
In the heart of Israel, there is a Haredi extraterritorial zone. One statement—nothing less than astonishing—illustrates this. While trash bins on Bnei Brak’s streets were burning and police vehicles were being overturned, the district police commander declared that “the female soldiers entered Bnei Brak without coordinating with the police.” As if Bnei Brak were a neighborhood in Jenin, rather than a city in the heart of Israel. The Haredim have created their own shield of deterrence against law enforcement. For months now, the police have refused to arrest Haredi draft dodgers, so as not to trigger riots and road blockades.
This autonomy did not arise overnight, and it is not just a reaction to recent efforts to draft Haredim. Its roots lie in an ideological Haredi conception that regards the State of Israel as a paritz—a ruthless and tyrannical overlord. Therefore, as a matter of principle, Haredim bear no responsibility toward the state. And yet, in their own eyes, they have full legitimacy to exploit to the fullest whatever can be extracted from that overlord: the Israeli taxpayer. In accordance with this outlook, over recent decades, the Haredim have used their political power to fortify the ghetto walls and expand their autonomy into a state within a state, cynically leveraging Israel’s resources. They have built an autonomous Haredi welfare system that recasts Israeli law as a series of recommendations, while state resources—health care, education, infrastructure, security—are the oxygen pipeline that sustains it.
Israeli memory is short, but it is enough to look back at the COVID years, for example, to see how this process has steadily intensified. Even at the height of the pandemic, when Health Ministry directives required a full lockdown and the closure of educational institutions, the Haredim carried on as though these matters did not concern them. The results were disastrous for the Haredim—morbidity and mortality were higher than in the rest of Israel—but also for the rest of Israelis because of the added overload on the health-care system. That is how it was during the pandemic, and that is how things are conducted now in almost every arena where there is a clash between the state and the Haredi autonomy that has arisen within it. A substantial share of the blame for this situation also falls on the state. In the face of Haredi intransigence, the state has for years displayed a lack of enforcement and oversight. Thus, for example, even when it is clear that Haredi institutions deceive the Israeli Ministry of Education and do not teach core curriculum subjects, the state continues to funnel budgets to them and turns a blind eye to the plundering paritz industry the Haredim have developed.
Or take another Haredi industry, the gemachs—charitable loan and mutual-aid funds—that moves hundreds of millions without proper supervision. There, too, the state drags its feet on tightening regulatory requirements under Haredi pressure. The proposed draft law is not just a bad law that will not enlist a single Haredi man. Its true and grave meaning is de facto recognition of the Haredi autonomy. Instead of integrating this sector of the population, it will only fortify the ghetto walls. The law’s original sin lies in shifting the duty of conscription from the individual to the community. Instead of the state exercising its sovereignty and obligating the young Haredi man to enlist as an equal citizen with equal rights and duties, it delegates responsibility to the Haredi autonomy.
The danger inherent in the draft law, as well as in the existence of a Haredi autonomy that lives at Israel’s expense but not according to its laws, is not only moral and administrative. It is existential. The demographic data is clear: Haredim already constitute 14% of Israel’s population. One in three first-graders in the Hebrew-language education system is Haredi. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, within four decades, a full one-third of Israelis will be Haredi. When a third of Israelis live in an autonomy outside the state’s legal and governing framework, the State of Israel will have no possibility of continued existence.
The question of Haredi conscription has long transcended “sharing the burden” and partnership in standing against the enemy. It has become a historic decision point: Will Israel continue to exist as a single state, or will a Haredi autonomy continue to grow within it—an autonomy that will change Israel’s character and ultimately lead to its collapse?