At one time I was a member of a congregation that was losing members.
At an open-to-members board meeting one of the non-board members asked the board if it knew why people were abandoning the congregation and going elsewhere.
The “bogadim” were not abandoning Judaism, they simply were leaving the congregation.
A couple of the board’s members responded by telling the questioner that the board did not know.
“Wouldn’t it be wise to find out why people are leaving so maybe they could be encouraged to return?” the visitor asked.
One board member replied that “No, we don’t care why they left. They left and we don’t want them back.” Several other board members agreed and the rest remained silent, either agreeing with the speaker or fearing to disagree.
If you look around my extended neighborhood, you will find members of my former congregation in a newly formed “Sefardi” minyan at the Main Ashkenazi synagogue, a several Ben Ish Hai congregations that, according to the shrinking congregation’s rabbi are off-shoots of his Sefardi synagogue (true – but why?), and the ubiquitous Chabad and Chabad-want-to-be congregations.
Membership still is slipping and the board still won’t admit that maybe - just maybe – there is something amiss with their organization.
I was reminded of this as I read an article with the misleading headline “Hareidi Paper Compares Lapid’s Speech to Hitler’s” from the on-line Arutz 7/Israel National News Web site.
The article quotes Chaim Walder, a columnist for the hareidi-religious newspaper Yated Neeman who complains that “they (non-haredim) have wicked plans regarding quality of life, the ability to live a normal life. To strip us of basic rights like payments, tax discounts, welfare, food for our children… there are even those who speak of taking the freedom to vote, or of leaving Israel, which is true dictatorship.”
This allegedly was in response to comments made two years ago in a column penned by Finance Minister Yair Lapid that told the haredim ““Forget ideology, forget that I don’t understand how it doesn’t bother you that you live at my expense. I can’t pay for it anymore. It’s over, there’s nothing left. I don’t just have nothing to give your children, I have nothing for my own. Do you understand how that makes me feel?”
Lapid, according to Arutz 7, ended that column with a warning, “We have to find a way, friend, or this will end badly.“
Walder, who we must assume is writing for the haredi rabbis – the leaders of the communities – in my mind is likened to the synagogue’s board.
He complains that the government wants to “strip us of basic rights like payments, tax discounts, welfare, food for our children.”
Excuse me. WHAT “basic rights?” My son-in law works two jobs to support his family AND the haredim who get payments, tax discounts, welfare, and food for their children. Where are my son-in-law’s “basic rights?” He does get a stipend for my grand-daughter, but no tax discounts, no welfare payments, and no free food or food purchasing assistance. He pays for kupat holim. He pays for my daughter’s education (promised but not provided by the government as a new olah studying to be a high school teacher).
Now, what Mr. Walder is failing to mention is that UNLIKE my son-in-law, the haredim refuse service in the IDF, and refuse national service. My son-in-law did his active duty time and does his reserve time. Inconvenient? Yes. Price of citizenship? Yes. (Israeli Arabs can/should do national service, even if only in Arab-dominated areas.)
The haredim refuse to give back anything to the state in return for all the state provides them.
Like the synagogue board, they haredim don’t want to “look into a mirror” and see themselves as they really are – people who not only take without giving anything back, but people who are – like many on America’s welfare roles – accustomed to living on handouts.
TO BE FAIR, not all “haredim” are takers. There are haredi Jews who fully participate in Israeli life – who serve in the IDF or national service, who have educations beyond the talmuds, who have gainful employment and still find time to study.
Likewise, not all welfare clients in America have the haredi’s “you owe me” mentality.
If the haredim want the non-haredim – observant Jews and helonim – to have any respect for them, they need to consider the complaints of “the rest of Israel” and at least seem to make an effort to integrate with the general population.
As long as the haredim consider themselves – and act – as part of a different society, a society that takes and gives nothing back but self-congratulating words (“We keep Israel safe by our talmud study”), the rest of the population, the population that provides Walder and his ilk with their “basic rights like payments, tax discounts, welfare, food for our children” – often at the expense of their own “basic rights,” - will continue to hold the haredim in contempt.
