It’s time to cure the disease of ultra-Orthodox Education

Article by Nehemia Shtrasler and re-posted from Haaretz.com on January 3, 2012.

Blessed be the yeshiva student who scared the little girl on her way to school. Blessed also be the one who spit at and cursed female passersby. Blessed be the ultra-Orthodox man who called the female soldier a prostitute, and blessed be those who demonstrated in striped prisoners' garb and stuck yellow stars on their clothing.

All this taken together might finally shake up the secular majority and force it into action. All this might make 90 percent of the population understand that there's no point in condemning the spitter or putting the one who cursed on trial. They are merely symptoms of a serious disease, and whoever deals merely with the symptoms is wasting his time and could even make the disease worse.

This disease is ultra-Orthodox education.  It's an education that puts young Haredim through a thorough brainwashing, which ends with them believing that democracy is the evil regime, that equal rights for women is totally treif, that freedom and humanism are only good for the goyim, and that studying math, English and history is idolatry.  They also learn that to go out and work for a living is a terrible embarrassment, and that to serve in the army is worthy of contempt, suited only to the secular donkey - who is stupid enough to sacrifice his life for the "homeland." 

Young Haredim are educated to totally despise the values of the secular state, which is why they have no problem scaring a little girl or calling policemen Nazis.  Their leaders have a clear goal: To provide the community with good living conditions at the expense of the secular donkey, who they believe should work hard, pay taxes and sacrifice his life in the army. Thus they can continue to shirk their duty while continuing to blackmail.

The part that's especially galling and absurd is that the secular majority, in its foolishness, is financing this destructive process. It gives huge budgets to the independent Haredi educational system. It gives allowances to married yeshiva students, as well as grants that are far higher than what a soldier gets during his compulsory service, or a student studying medicine or engineering. This is because the secular population is suicidal. It is slowly but surely wiping itself out with its own hands.

Just now, following the events in Beit Shemesh, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested a solution: Divide Beit Shemesh into two, a Haredi city and a religious-secular one. Interior minister and Shas chairman Eli Yishai immediately objected. Yishai understood that a Haredi city couldn't survive because it would be "without revenues, without arnona [city taxes] and without industry."

In other words, without the secular-national religious donkey bearing the burden, there would be nothing from which to give those Haredi families with many children. It would be impossible for them to finance their education, health care, welfare, ritual baths, synagogues, yeshivas and kollels - yeshivas for married men.

As we speak, Beit Shemesh is planning a new neighborhood with 25,000 apartments, but the government is marketing those apartments at Haredim at cost price. In other words, despite the recommendations of the Trajtenberg Committee, the Haredim are the ones who will get land at half price, in addition to large discounts on taxes. All this comes on the backs of the religious and secular taxpayers.

Only last week, Yishai suggested changing the tables for arnona discounts so that large families in small apartments with low incomes get a bigger break.

So we have to stop dealing with symptoms; it's time to cure the disease. In other words, to do away with the independent education systems of Shas and Agudat Yisrael, and force every child in Israel to study the same general curriculum, as in France. Whoever wishes can teach his children Mishna and Talmud in the afternoon.

All the Haredi draft evaders should be drafted into the Israel Defense Forces for three years, like any other citizen. Everyone has to help protect the country. The support given to yeshivas and kollels from the state budget should be totally stopped, which will force the Haredim to go to work. In no part of the Diaspora, neither in Poland nor in Morocco, did Jews even dream of living as parasites at the public's expense.

But knowing where we live, and what's important to Netanyahu, we can assume that this call will fall on deaf ears and we'll take the slow-but-sure route to oblivion.

Israeli Women No Longer Forced To The Back Of The Bus

Dear Friend:

I writing to you today with some exciting news: Israeli women will no longer be forced to the back of the bus. And you helped to make it possible.

I know for me and probably for you, it is difficult to fathom that, in this day and age, we are speaking literally about a woman’s right to choose…her own bus seat.

As Justice Rubinstein wrote in the ruling that determined that publicly funded buses cannot compel or enforce gender segregation :“Of course all women are entitled to sit anywhere they choose on a public bus…I can’t believe I’m writing these words in 2010… have the days of Rosa Parks returned?!” 

Last year, you joined us in expressing your outrage over the reincarnation of the regressive practice of segregation through thousands of letters sent to Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz. Together our letters made clear that we, as North American Jews invested in Israel’s present and future as a democracy, would not stand idly by “while Israel grants a small minority the power to dictate what Judaism is or to make halacha into an instrument of discrimination and segregation.” And today, with this ruling, came confirmation that our voices had been heard.

Likewise, NIF set to work in amplifying your voice on the ground. It was our grantee Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) which initiated the lawsuit and doggedly saw it through to victory. Another grantee, Kolech- Religious Women's Forum, established a hotline to collect testimony from women who were being abused and humiliated on segregated buses. And we staged a theatrical protest outside the Knesset where men and women walked on separate sides of the street to raise public awareness about the growing trend of gender segregation.

As we celebrate this important victory for democracy, for pluralism and for equality, we must nonetheless remain vigilant. The ruling does allow for women to “voluntarily” segregate themselves. IRAC intends to put 1,000 “freedom riders” on the buses to ensure that “voluntarily” doesn’t devolve into compulsory. Moreover, we must keep our eye on the prize. This battle won is significant, but it is only one in a much larger struggle.
And as always, thank you for standing with us.
Sincerely,

Daniel Sokatch
CEO