‘Russians’ vs. the Haredim in Israel’s Latest Political Battle

By Ira Sharkansky, Ph.D

Ira Sharkansky

JERUSALEM — It’s been a while coming, but now it may be here.

For years, Avigdor Lieberman has been calling for a limitation of what the Haredim have demanded, and received. He’s called for a liberalization of marriage laws, allowing the joining of those not Jewish according to Orthodox Rabbis, with those who are Jews. Or the union of two people who can’t satisfy the demands of the Orthodox, who insist on those born of a mother who can prove that she was born of a Jewish mother . . . .

It’s the large Russian community, that is Lieberman’s primary constituency. Many of them lack the proof required, or clearly fail due to being the result of unions between a  Jewish father and non-Jewish woman. Or between a man who was born of a non-Jewish mother but had a father who thought of himself as a Jew.

Lots of mixtures coming from the former Soviet Union. And not a few coming from the United States and elsewhere in Europe. Enough to satisfy the Law of Return, which insists on one Grandparent who is or was a Jew.

Now Lieberman is Minister of Finance, and one of his first moves has been to deny support for the early education of children of parents who do not work.

His criteria are not that simple. And they do not mention the children of a Yeshiva student. But that is what they mean.

The response was not long in coming. Ultra-Orthodox politicians have been quick to note that more of their young men, and very many of their young women are in the workforce, and that young women would have to quit their jobs and stay home to care for their little kids.

Maybe.

And maybe that this is only the first step in what will be Lieberman’s campaign against the privileges that wrap the Haredim in various kinds of tax forgiveness and other aids that subsidize their life styles of perpetual study for the men, without military service, and huge families, that will in turn produce their own huge families receiving large subsidies.

Lieberman’s colleagues in the government aren’t so sure. How much can they press the ultra-Orthodox. We’re hearing calls to modify his dictate, and to postpone its implementation.

We can think of it as a conflict between our Russians and our Haredim. It’s more than that. There are Haredim among the Russian immigrants, and lots of anti-Haredim among those who’ve been here generations longer than the Russians. However, the Russian population is the most complex, with real issues about religious identities that complicate their lives, and those of their children.

More than a million “Russians” have come since the collapse of the Soviet Union, many of them products of ethnic mixing with limited or no religious feelings that proceeded for two or more generations since the Russian revolution.

And here they’ve encountered a religious establishment, whose own backgrounds may be more complex than they’d like to admit, but who have instituted Orthodox definitions of who is a Jew.

All this is foreign to Americans and others who have adopted Reform definitions of who is a Jew (I.e., one parent, either father or mother).

So there’s a battle, with the Haredim firmly on one side, along with the many Israelis who are “religious” in the Orthodox context.

What is its future?

Some predict a greater conflict with the ultra-Orthodox than with the Arabs. They say that Israel is a country with three nations: Jews, Arabs, and Haredim.

Haredi benefits go back to David Ben Gurion’s recognition of their severe losses of the ultra-Orthodox in the Holocaust, and his decision to allow the ultra-Orthodox minority to avoid military service.

Now that minority is close to or more than 10 percent of the population.

Their cousins in the United States work, and accommodate themselves, more or less, to the various rules established by state and local governments. And they send their children to Israel, where they benefit from free education, subsidiaries for what become their large families, and a host of benefits including subsidized housing and family payments that extend throughout their lives. As well as exclusion from military service.

How long can it last?

We’ll see.

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Ira Sharkansky, Ph.D, is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University.  He may be contacted via ira.sharkansky@sdjewishworld.com