Are there any valid, logical reasons why the Haredim should not have to serve in the IDF?

Great Debates
21

In 1948, the issue of the right to “conscience” was dealt with by the United Nations General Assembly in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It reads:

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Also the article includes a list- many nations allow conscientious objector status.

And in any case- conscientious objector is more often a Moral objection. Is it okay for people to have Morals and ethics?

Did you read my post about the Realpolitik reasons for it? They are both Valid and Logical.

But currently, they are part of Netanyahu’s coalition. Which is why the exemption continues.

22

There are indeed sizable Haredi communities that forbid their members from interacting with the secular society by voting.

23

Because if they don’t vote, they won’t have power, and they won’t get their money. Most of the Haredim are on welfare - very lavish welfare - and not only do their elected representatives keep the cash flowing, they make sure that their children never learn anything in school that will make them employable.

24

You’re not the first person to cite conscientious objectors.

I fond morality to be completely orthogonal to religiosity. As such Haredi or any other religious stance on any moral question is already based on wrong thinking.

Morals are fine. As long as you don’t get them out of the cereal box which is religion.

25

No, no - you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power.

26

That’s drug dealing. Politics is the other way around.

27

They aren’t conscientious objectors. I respect conscientious objectors.

28

It’s important to note that while in the past, the Haredim would act as kingmakers in Israeli politics, playing both sides of the political map, over the long years of Bibi’s reign they have tied themselves closer and closer to the hard right, to the point that many left-wing, centrist and even some right-wing candidates in the coming election have pledged never to sit in a coalition with them or to accept their support. I know it’s a key precondition in my choice of who to vote for.

I guess we’ll see in October how much the general Israeli public has soured on the Haredim. It’s one of the most important issues of the election, if not the most important one.

While they’re generally not as aggressively hawkish as others on the religious far-right (although some of them, the Hardalim, are), like most tight-knit, isolationist, deeply conservative religious communities, they’re generally pretty xenophobic, if not actively supremacist. As a result, they have no problem going along with the actual hawks.

29

The OP asked about “valid. logical” reasons.
Almost everybody in this thread is right, of course, about two things.
1.There is no valid reason for exempting the religious fanatics from the same civic duty that other citizens face.
and 2. the actual reason is realpolitik.

But there is a “logical” explanation. And to understand that, you need to know the context of how the ultra-religious live. So for those who are as the OP says “non-Jewish, non-Israeli, and only have the most superficial understanding”, here is my contribution to the thread, for context:

The Haredim (Hebrew for “pious”) live a lifestyle that can only be described as a fanatic cult. It it an absolute, all encompassing lifestyle which completely controls every minute of your day, and every day of your life, and every stage of your life. Like most cults, it requires that you have virtually no contact with regular society, and punishes you and your family if you stray from their path..

Their lifestyle is, of course, based on the rituals of standard Orthodox Judaism. Many of these rituals are common knowledge. If you have met any Orthodox Jews in America, you may be aware of them: wearing a yarmulka on your head, eating only kosher food reciting prayers three times a day, strict observance of the Sabbath day of rest.
All these can be done while living a normal life.

But the Haredim take it to extremes. They deliberately cut themselves off from the wider society around them. They honestly believe that working a job is unnecessary, because studying the Bible and the Talmud* 10 hours a day 365 days a year is doing God’s will.

To illustrate how extreme their lifestyle is, I’ll discuss their attitude to marriage.
A huge part of the Haredi lifestyle involves family life. Having 5 children is normal, 8 is common. Raising all those children, ensuring that they all live the complete lifestyle is a huge part of the cult mentality. Every child is raised knowing that he or she will get married and have another 5 or more children.

And this is one critical aspect of their society which is often ignored by secular political commentators.
Getting married is THE single most important goal of Haredi cult society,
Many, perhaps most, marriages are arranged by the parents. Every girl at age 18, and every boy at age 20 is expected to get married. Typically, the parents arrange for one or two dates, in which the boy and girl will meet for conversation. They chat, and if they decide that their parents made a reasonable choice and that the two of them seem to be generally compatible, they announce the wedding date a few weeks later. (Love is irrelevant…that comes later, after a couple years of living together and raising the first few children.)

A year later the first child is born, soon followed by many more.

And now (if you are still reading!)—back to the subject of this thread:
One main reason that the Haredi community refuses to serve in the Israeli army is that serving 2 or 3 years would destroy the entire system of marriages, which is the bedrock of the Haredi society.
It would remove the young people from their cult, expose them to the real world, and destroy the mentality which all cults are based on–being locked into the closed world of the cult.

This is a huge challenge for Israeli society. It is not just a question of changing a law or two regarding drafting Hared members , or cutting the funding of their educational institutions. It is an issue of forcing massive social upheaval, breaking the mindset of the cult, and destroying the lifestyle which they have developed , becoming increasingly more and more fanatic over the past 2 generations. (About 40 years ago, the Haredi lifestyle was less fanatic)

.
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(*The Talmud is a truly vast body of Jewish law, which takes many years to learn casually, and takes a lifetime to know deeply.)

30

Haredi culture is like a bizarre mutation of traditional Jewish culture, in which the smartest and most pious men are financially supported by the community so that they can devote their time to studying Torah and Talmud, so that they can provide spiritual leadership to the community.

But the Haredim have decided that EVERY male Jew ought to spend their entire lives studying. Thus, half the adult population is excluded from the workforce, while the other half supports their families financially while also being solely responsible for raising those 8 kids. Obviously, this is not a subculture that can sustain itself without subsidies from the outside world.

31

My guess is that a lot of folks of this kind argue, “Well, the Israeli death toll would have been a lot worse if we HADN’T been praying and studying!”

32

But saying “they have a lot of clout” isn’t a truly logical/valid reason. That still boils down to threat, not reason.

You could have 51% of a democracy’s voters voting for something that’s illogical and dumb (not Haredi, but any other situation), and punishing anyone who objects, by out-voting them. The fact that they hold majority power doesn’t make it any more logical, it’s just threat and coercion.

33

No, they believe that every Haredi male should spend their entire lives studying, and that us non-Haredi Jews should serve as their hewers of wood and drawers of water, and pay them for the privilege.

34

Hey, some of them would be very happy for you to Lachzor Betshuva and join them in studying Torah. And they really want to know if you put on tefillin this morning.

35

They do that not because of they care about us, but to get “God points”. If you asked them whether they’d want all Jews to become like then, and if they answered you honestly (which probably wouldn’t happen), they’d admit that they wouldn’t - SOMEONE has to work for a living.

36

I thought that’s what HaShem created the goyim for…

(replying to Alessan’s post just above)

37

FTR …

I 100% agree w you.

I was calling BS, and Johnny come lately BS at that, on DrDeth’s risible post I replied to. Which was lecturing me on the obvious.

38

A conscientious objector is an “individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service” on the grounds of freedom of conscience or of religion.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/conscientious-objector

conscientious objector, one who opposes bearing arms or who objects to any type of military training and service. Some conscientious objectors refuse to submit to any of the procedures of compulsory conscription. Although all objectors take their position on the basis of conscience, they may have varying religious, philosophical, or political reasons for their beliefs.

So, you may not like the idea that conscientious objectors may do so due to their religious beliefs, but that is the way it is. By definition. BS or not. Risible or not. :roll_eyes:

However, this is my conclusion-

So, it doesnt matter whether or not they are conscientious objectors-that is a side issue- they get their exemption due to political reasons. Now if you wish to start a different GD about who- in your opinion- should be able to claim conscientious objector status, fine.

But the OP asked for a valid reason, and politics is certainly valid. Maybe not always logical…