All articles tagged with #haredi community
Israeli leaders, including Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz, criticize Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef's threat that ultra-Orthodox Jews will leave Israel if a compulsory draft is enacted, calling it an insult to IDF soldiers and a moral affront to the state. Avigdor Liberman also opposes the rabbi's declaration, while the Shas Party defends Yosef's remarks and Otzma Yehudit advocates for understanding and love in recruitment.
Julia Haart, star of the Netflix show "My Unorthodox Life," revealed on a podcast that she breastfed her own brother at the request of her mother. Julia, who spent the first 40 years of her life living in the strict Haredi community of Orthodox Judaism, shared the shocking revelation and compared her upbringing to living in the 18th century. She also discussed her journey of questioning the beliefs she was raised with and eventually leaving the community. Julia is now divorced from her second husband and has become a successful entrepreneur in the fashion industry.
Yair Lapid, the opposition leader of Israel, criticized the proposed state budget for allocating funds to the Haredi community while allowing Haredi men to avoid employment. He argued that the budget fails to tackle the cost of living crisis or stimulate economic growth. The discretionary funds allocated by the government would be better spent achieving those goals. The budget includes NIS 3.7 billion for stipends for full-time Haredi yeshiva students who receive exemptions from military service and NIS 1.2 billion for private, non-supervised Haredi educational institutions. Lapid argued that the failure to require Haredi schools to teach core curriculum subjects meant that Haredi men would continue to face severe difficulties entering the job market even if they wanted to.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with coalition partners to discuss a potential new legislation on the military draft, which would lower the age at which members of the ultra-Orthodox community can get a formal exemption from service. The proposal would lower the age of final exemption from the army from the current 26 to 23 or 21. The Haredi population of Israel overwhelmingly opposes performing mandated national civil or military service, seeing it as a way for external forces to potentially draw away its members.