I love your stuff, but spare me the extreme. Let's get specific. You are talking about Smotrich and Ben Gvir. The issues they push are: 1. Jewish control of Judea and Samaria. 2. Hard line against Arab enemies of Israel, internal and external, and 3. Strengthening the Jewish nature of Israel. You may not agree with any of these, but are they extreme? Anyway, I'm willing to make a deal with you: cross post my latest https://ehudneor.substack.com/p/a-yarmulke-on-both-your-houses and I will cross-post this of yours. On second thought, no need. I'll cross post yours anyway. It is a nice contrast to what I wrote. Jewish ascendancy doesn't have to be seen as a new 9th of Av. It can be celebrated. I'll grant you that the celebration should be measured, and steps should be made to placate brothers and sisters on the left. The whole of the people of Israel is essential to the Zionist project. btw, I would love to hear your story of leaving the right. That would make a great post.
Thanks, Ehud. I don't just mean Smotrich and Ben Gvir, I mean all the parties Likud formed the coalition with, and some in Likud are extreme too, though I don't know how many. Some of the worst things Israel could do are (1) annex Judea and Samaria and permanently add a huge Arab population to the country, which would ruin it either demographically or as a democracy, and (2) continue to cultivate and fund the haredi sector, in which a large proportion of the men still insist on refusing army service, refusing to get an education other than religious texts, and refusing to work for a living. For the state to cultivate such a sector and have to finance it from working taxpayers' pockets would not pass any test in economics.
Haredim? More and more entering the workspace. Not a few (but I agree not nearly enough) are doing army now. It takes time, these glacial changes. What do I lose sleep over? The absence of a sane center-left in Israel (present company excluded). Listen to how they are speaking. A shame, but at least we are seeing what they are made of. We need higher quality people in politics, on both sides.
I've always thought Dr. Kedar's emirates solution is imaginative and good. Might work someday if the Palestinian culture changes and moderates. According to the reports of the coalition deals involving the two haredi parties, they're supposed to get what they want in terms of a total exemption from military service and increased funding for their educational institutions, including those that teach religious subjects only and leave the students with no skills whatsoever to take part in a modern society. They've already gotten an increase in stipends for full-time yeshiva students, and the tax on plastic tableware canceled, with severe consequences for the environment. Including them in such a coalition ensures that they get granted favors that have the effect of reversing progress toward taking part constructively in society.
To tell you the truth? I can see the possibility wherein the Haredim close in on themselves even more than today. Yes, sponging off the taxpayers and all that. But I prefer to see them as a strategic reserve. They are becoming Zionists in their own way and at their own pace. How can they not? It's the same way I feel about American Jewry: they are coming home to Israel, at least most of them, and there is no need to brow-beat them about it.
What is the basis for my confidence that the Haredim will abandon their insularity? The fact that they have eyes in their heads. Eyes to see that it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate Israeli reality from their core belief system, which holds as basic tenets the ingathering of the Jews and the redemption of the Jewish people in the land of Israel, and a return of the people of Israel to their Creator.
I do not believe that any Jew can avoid the attraction of being a part of this process. Lacking a direct voice from the heavens today, the interpretive voice holds the stage. True, they seem to interpret their present political power as the answer to their prayer to uphold their insularity, but I see it is a swan song.
I wish I could share such optimism. The haredim have a big problem with a Jewish state that's not run on halakhic principles and where most of the Jews, to varying degrees, live nonhalakhic lives. The presence of the haredi parties in governing coalitions only worsens their negative trends because of concessions that get made to them. The large majority of American Jews are essentially Americans rather than Jews and would be more likely to move to Canada or Australia or Denmark than to Israel if they were to move at all; but I reconciled myself to that a long time ago.
Not big enough of a problem with the state that they are leaving. What you say about American Jews--I never thought about that option. Kind of: they'll pray anywhere on Earth but never in that synagogue (Israel). Still, I think they will come, some out of fear but mostly because of the light starting to go forth from Zion.
I love your stuff, but spare me the extreme. Let's get specific. You are talking about Smotrich and Ben Gvir. The issues they push are: 1. Jewish control of Judea and Samaria. 2. Hard line against Arab enemies of Israel, internal and external, and 3. Strengthening the Jewish nature of Israel. You may not agree with any of these, but are they extreme? Anyway, I'm willing to make a deal with you: cross post my latest https://ehudneor.substack.com/p/a-yarmulke-on-both-your-houses and I will cross-post this of yours. On second thought, no need. I'll cross post yours anyway. It is a nice contrast to what I wrote. Jewish ascendancy doesn't have to be seen as a new 9th of Av. It can be celebrated. I'll grant you that the celebration should be measured, and steps should be made to placate brothers and sisters on the left. The whole of the people of Israel is essential to the Zionist project. btw, I would love to hear your story of leaving the right. That would make a great post.
Thanks, Ehud. I don't just mean Smotrich and Ben Gvir, I mean all the parties Likud formed the coalition with, and some in Likud are extreme too, though I don't know how many. Some of the worst things Israel could do are (1) annex Judea and Samaria and permanently add a huge Arab population to the country, which would ruin it either demographically or as a democracy, and (2) continue to cultivate and fund the haredi sector, in which a large proportion of the men still insist on refusing army service, refusing to get an education other than religious texts, and refusing to work for a living. For the state to cultivate such a sector and have to finance it from working taxpayers' pockets would not pass any test in economics.
The solution for Judea and Samaria: Dr. Kedar's emirates solution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Kedar
Haredim? More and more entering the workspace. Not a few (but I agree not nearly enough) are doing army now. It takes time, these glacial changes. What do I lose sleep over? The absence of a sane center-left in Israel (present company excluded). Listen to how they are speaking. A shame, but at least we are seeing what they are made of. We need higher quality people in politics, on both sides.
I've always thought Dr. Kedar's emirates solution is imaginative and good. Might work someday if the Palestinian culture changes and moderates. According to the reports of the coalition deals involving the two haredi parties, they're supposed to get what they want in terms of a total exemption from military service and increased funding for their educational institutions, including those that teach religious subjects only and leave the students with no skills whatsoever to take part in a modern society. They've already gotten an increase in stipends for full-time yeshiva students, and the tax on plastic tableware canceled, with severe consequences for the environment. Including them in such a coalition ensures that they get granted favors that have the effect of reversing progress toward taking part constructively in society.
To tell you the truth? I can see the possibility wherein the Haredim close in on themselves even more than today. Yes, sponging off the taxpayers and all that. But I prefer to see them as a strategic reserve. They are becoming Zionists in their own way and at their own pace. How can they not? It's the same way I feel about American Jewry: they are coming home to Israel, at least most of them, and there is no need to brow-beat them about it.
What is the basis for my confidence that the Haredim will abandon their insularity? The fact that they have eyes in their heads. Eyes to see that it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate Israeli reality from their core belief system, which holds as basic tenets the ingathering of the Jews and the redemption of the Jewish people in the land of Israel, and a return of the people of Israel to their Creator.
I do not believe that any Jew can avoid the attraction of being a part of this process. Lacking a direct voice from the heavens today, the interpretive voice holds the stage. True, they seem to interpret their present political power as the answer to their prayer to uphold their insularity, but I see it is a swan song.
I wish I could share such optimism. The haredim have a big problem with a Jewish state that's not run on halakhic principles and where most of the Jews, to varying degrees, live nonhalakhic lives. The presence of the haredi parties in governing coalitions only worsens their negative trends because of concessions that get made to them. The large majority of American Jews are essentially Americans rather than Jews and would be more likely to move to Canada or Australia or Denmark than to Israel if they were to move at all; but I reconciled myself to that a long time ago.
Not big enough of a problem with the state that they are leaving. What you say about American Jews--I never thought about that option. Kind of: they'll pray anywhere on Earth but never in that synagogue (Israel). Still, I think they will come, some out of fear but mostly because of the light starting to go forth from Zion.