The Power of Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox Has Peaked

The bitter controversy now taking place in Israel over the government’s judicial overhaul isn’t just about its plans to curb the powers of the courts and subject them to more political control. It is about the character of Israeli society and whether it will remain liberal, democratic, and largely secular—or become more closed, less tolerant, and infused with religious values. To its immense discomfort, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community has found itself at the center of the controversy.

Although the opposition mainly vents its rage at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Justice Minister Yariv Levin and lawmaker Simcha Rothman—the architects of the judicial overhaul—the ultra-Orthodox (or Haredim, as they are known in Hebrew) have been targeted, too.

Protesters have marched through Haredi neighborhoods and rallied in front of the Haredi-dominated rabbinical courts, which impose a draconian form of religious law in the areas in their purview—most contentiously divorce and religious conversions—for the Jewish population. It is only because protest leaders are sensitive to charges of unfairly singling out Haredim that there haven’t been more protests of that sort.

Ultra-Orthodox politicians from the United Torah Judaism and Shas parties have an interest in neutering the courts and initially supported the judicial overhaul, mainly in order to shield themselves from a Supreme Court decision ordering their young men to serve in the military.

But the Haredim have hardly been at the forefront of the drive. In fact, they have gradually pulled back. When the right organized its first big rally in favor of the judicial overhaul in May, a leading Haredi newspaper told readers that anyone who attended “is not one of us—period.” Last Thursday, the same newspaper ran an editorial urging the coalition to back off from the judicial overhaul altogether.

Haredi leaders fear that many followers, the young especially, are becoming involved in far-right politics, distancing them from the community and reducing rabbis’ control over them.

Why are the Haredim pulling back? The fear of finding themselves on the front lines of the fight over the judicial overhaul is no doubt a factor; it is not a core issue for them. Another essential factor is that the Haredi leadership fears that many of its followers, the young especially, are increasingly becoming involved in far-right politics, distancing them from the community and reducing rabbis’ control over them.

For a group that aspires to remain apart as much as possible from the secular world, joining demonstrations, attending events where men and women mix, following the news media, and making contact with non-Haredi activists all risk breaking the walls leaders have erected around the community.

Last week, the rabbis got what they wanted: Haredi attendance at rightist protests was virtually nonexistent. But political and labor market trends suggest that religious leaders’ influence won’t last forever. When it fades to the point that rabbis no longer determine the voting behavior of their followers, the ultra-Orthodox parties’ clout will diminish and Israel’s political map could look very different.

Even more worrying from the protesters’ point of view is that Haredi political power has grown immeasurably over the last decade as the ultra-Orthodox political parties became the steadfast allies of Netanyahu and the right.

Today, they are more powerful than ever. The governing coalition contains no centrist parties to act as a restraint, giving Haredi politicians a free hand to press their agenda. They have not only won unprecedented amounts of money from the new state budget for their educational institutions but are embarking on legislation that would enshrine their young men’s exemption from the military draft in a Basic Law, one that enjoys constitutional status (in lieu of Israel’s having no formal constitution), thereby preventing the Supreme Court from ever intervening. They are seeking greater powers for the rabbinical courts, to expand existing laws against incitement to racism to include “incitement against the Haredi community,” and a host of other legislation.

Thanks to demographics, the growth of Haredi political power seems unstoppable. The Central Bureau of Statistics estimates the ultra-Orthodox grew from 10 percent of Israel’s population in 2009 to 13 percent last year. By 2042, they will account for nearly 21 percent, and by 2062 almost a third. These forecasts are unlikely to play out quite as projected, but barring an unlikely religious revolution that brings a massive dropout rate from the community, it is difficult to see how its share of the population won’t continue growing quickly. Israel’s system of proportional representation—which empowers minorities through a low Knesset entry threshold of just 3.25 percent of votes nationally—together with the community’s tradition of disciplined voting, enhances Haredi political power beyond raw numbers.

However, demographics are a double-edged sword—the source of increased political power but also of economic distress. Haredi society is unusual not only for its high birth rate but for the value system it has developed over the last half-century that puts the study of religious texts (Torah) at the center of the community’s life. Men are expected to shun a secular education, military service, and gainful employment. If and when they do find work, it is often in low-paying, low-skilled jobs—the only ones their limited secular education gets them.

Ironically, the fact that women are regarded as second-class citizens means they are allowed to acquire a modicum of work-related skills in school so they can help support their families after marriage. But because men are trained for religious study and encouraged to continue studying well into adulthood, only a little more than half of adult males are in the labor market, compared with 89 percent for their non-Haredi Jewish counterparts. The rate of poverty is twice as high as among the general population.

As the ultra-Orthodox population has grown, this has become a heavy drag on the Israeli economy. The men who are shunning employment contribute little or nothing to the tax base while enjoying government allowances and subsidies. Their large families and rapidly growing population burden the health care system, infrastructure, and housing supply. But government efforts to encourage Haredim to obtain more of a secular education, including math, science, and English, have run up against stiff resistance from community leaders and politicians. The ultra-Orthodox rely on government financial assistance in the form of stipends for yeshiva (religious seminary) students and a cornucopia of tax benefits, subsidies, and make-work jobs such as kosher kitchen supervisors and inflated school faculties.

At some point in the next decade, the growing Haredi demands for government handouts will exceed the government’s ability to provide more or Israeli taxpayers’ willingness to pay.

At some point in the next decade, the growing Haredi demands for government handouts will exceed the government’s ability to provide more or Israeli taxpayers’ willingness to pay. Meanwhile, the ideal of self-imposed poverty for the sake of Torah study is becoming less appealing. More and more Haredim aspire to a middle-class lifestyle that’s impossible living solely on the state’s largesse. The ability of the most honored community rabbis to dictate lifestyles is already waning due to growing internet usage and the gradual dying off of the last generation of universally acknowledged leaders.

Faced with these pressures, there are nascent signs that Haredim are beginning to abandon their insistence on a strictly Torah education, a life of study instead of employment, and isolation from the wider world. That, of course, will not come easily given how deeply these ideals are embedded; the change is taking place slowly and hesitantly amid denial that anything is happening at all.

The change has already begun with women. Working wives and mothers were once a marginal phenomenon, but over the last decade they have become a pillar of the Haredi economy as female employment has reached 78 percent, nearing the rate for non-Haredi Jewish women. More women are finding work outside teaching and other community jobs in high-tech and non-Haredi businesses.

Meanwhile, Haredi politicians are pushing to create jobs for men. A law making its way through the Knesset would require government companies and local authorities to hire Haredim (and other minorities) at higher rates. A new conscription law backed by ultra-Orthodox parties would lower the age at which a young man no longer needs to be studying in a yeshiva to be exempt from army service from 26 to as low as 21. Even though it would institutionalize avoidance of army service, it is no surprise that many policymakers support the plan, because it would free young men who don’t like yeshiva studies to find employment. What is more surprising is that Haredi party leaders favor the plan, too.

The rabbis no doubt hope to create the kind of employment that doesn’t demand a secular education and keeps their followers within the confines of the community. But that will be a challenge. In Israel’s high-tech economy, there are limited numbers of jobs that fit the bill. And once a man goes out into the world and is no longer sheltered by 24/7 devotion to Torah study, he is likely to be tempted by consumer goods and services, grow more independent of rabbis and politicians, and begin thinking about politics like other voters. The dropout rate from the Haredi community will almost certainly grow, and the intensity of ultra-Orthodox religiosity will moderate.

For the foreseeable future, this is unlikely to translate into political gains for the center—much less the left. Haredi politicians traditionally zig-zagged between the left and the right on foreign policy and other issues that had no direct bearing on the community’s interest. Over the last decade, however, they have moved to the right. Conservative politicians are often religiously observant themselves, or at least traditional; their economic populism squares easily with generous welfare policies.

Polls show that the political views of ordinary Haredim are even more firmly ensconced on the right, too. But that will be of little help to Haredi political parties. Their lock on the community is founded not on rightist ideology but on their ability to squeeze money from the state and then allocate it to community members and institutions. It also derives from the religious authority of the rabbis affiliated with them. As Haredim come to rely less on state handouts and on the authority of rabbinic leaders, that power will inevitably dissipate. Last year’s election saw the far-right Religious Zionism party siphon off many Haredi voters from the traditional ultra-Orthodox parties.

Given the direction Israel is taking—one fortified by the passage on July 24 of the first piece of judicial overhaul legislation—the protesters’ anxieties about the Haredim are understandable. There is a culture war underway in Israel now that is no less bitter than the one in America. The Haredim should be cheering on the religious right; the fact that they are not should make liberal Israel think again about what is unfolding.

What we are witnessing today likely marks the apogee of ultra-Orthodox political power—and the ultra-Orthodox know it.