Perspective 107. The Ultra-Orthodox in Israel: Face of the Future?
Perspective 107. The Ultra-Orthodox in Israel: Face of the Future?
Based just on the higher birth-rate of Israeli Ultra-Orthodox (haredim), they could be 25 percent of the population by 2050, and -- eventually -- a majority. At the same time they constitute an “enclave” community that rejects Israel as it is and seeks to transform it. Given the numbers, will the haredim prevail?
No, not in all likelihood. There is more to future population projections than birth-rates at the moment. Also, the haredi community is not immune to the secularizing forces prevalent in all modernizing societies – yes, including even the state of Israel.
In perspective, the haredi population has indeed grown impressively in absolute numbers, by about 47 percent over the last 13 years. But at 13.3 percent of the total population (figures from the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics), it is not nearly where it would be if birth-rate were the only factor. In fact it is not that much higher as a part of the population than when the state was founded. The difference in birth-rate is offset by other facts, such as immigration (for example, mostly secular Jews from the former Soviet Union). In more recent years, the birth-rate among Israeli Jews generally has risen, while it has declined slightly among haredim, partly closing the gap.
But the big unknown is the number of those born into haredi families who integrate into secular or modern religious Israeli society. Reliable data is difficult to find, but given the experience in other Jewish communities in the Western world, the number of “drop-outs” is likely to be substantial.
A recent survey reported by the Israel Democracy Institute gives a picture of what is changing and what is not. The separate haredi educational system, with little or no secular content, remains largely intact despite official policy. Only 14 percent of haredi students passed a recent matriculation exam at the end of secondary school. Only 48 percent of working-age haredi men were employed, though this was an improvement over the one-third a few years earlier. The poverty rate remained around 40-50 percent, as against roughly 20 percent for the general public.
Very few military-age haredi men serve in the army, a situation guaranteed to continue under the new government. Instead, the vast majority are officially enrolled in religious studies, subsidized by government allowances. Efforts to limit exemptions from military service, backed by Israel’s Supreme Court, help explain the vehement haredi backing of the government’s plan to neuter Israel’s judiciary.
But there are also some signs that broader society is penetrating into the enclave. A full 75 percent of the community report Hebrew as their primary language, with once-dominant Yiddish falling to 17 percent. Use of the internet, despite loudly-proclaimed prohibitions, rose from 28 to 66 percent recently.
Since women are the main breadwinners (while husbands are busily studying), 59 percent of haredi women finishing school passed the matriculation exam and fully 78 percent of all the women were employed.
And when women are sent to work in the big broad world, who knows what influences they will bring back to the shtetl?
The best guess, in the end, is that the enclave will persist, but that it will remain a minority, and that its rough edges will be softened over time by the flourishing society of which it is, willy-nilly, an inescapable part.
And if the haredim ever did come to constitute 50 percent of Israel, would the nation tolerate an arrangement in which half of all army draftees were automatically excused from service? Not bloody likely.