The Perverse Incentives That Keep Haredim from Contributing to the Israeli Economy

Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer’s essay, just published in Mosaic, is required reading for anyone interested in the evolving social, economic, and political challenges that Israel faces where the haredi sector is concerned. The essay brings much-needed clarity to the way we think and talk about these questions. It aptly identifies the paradox in Rabbi Shach’s vision; it explains the rationale and the historical circumstances that led Haredim to wall themselves off; and, above all, it boldly charts a way forward. Pfeffer also seeks to give the haredi public a new language and a new vision—one of covenant, as opposed to contract—and calls on Haredim to take responsibility in the political, military, and economic spheres, all without giving up their communal identity. In this sense, Rabbi Pfeffer is a courageous social and religious entrepreneur. In many ways he follows in the footsteps of Yohanan ben Zakkai—who, in the face of military defeat, prioritized study of sacred texts over a desperate quest for political power—only from the opposite direction.

Because I view Pfeffer’s diagnosis and proposed remedy favorably and am inclined to agree with both, I want to use this brief response to add two points that I find missing from his essay. One is absent entirely; the other is not emphasized enough.

I’ll begin, then, at the end. Pfeffer calls on the haredi public to take economic responsibility for its own fate, but his essay does not adequately convey the urgency, or the fateful economic consequences, of continuing the current arrangement. It is therefore worth stressing a truly critical point: from the standpoint of Israel as a whole, the haredi challenge is first and foremost an economic challenge. Israel can survive as a developed, thriving country without Haredim enlisting in the army. It can survive as a national community even if Haredim continue to enjoy social, geographic, and educational separation. But it cannot go on as a growing, prosperous economy without haredi integration into that economy. In this respect, the continued haredi economic underdevelopment is a tangible, direct, and immediate threat to Israel’s strength and survival.