Stanley Gold and Hiddush have been warning of the danger to the economic future of Israel posed by the current status of religion and state relations. This warning call is further strengthened by research published by Prof. Dan Ben-David and the Taub Center for Social Policy Research and recently by Bank of Israel chairman Stanley Fischer.
Hiddush steadfastly advocates the need for a fundamental change in Religion and State relations and fulfillment of the principle of freedom of religion and conscience. The proposed conversion bill, gender-segregated ‘mehadrin’ buses, the right to marry, the ‘shabbat wars’ and the future of Israel’s economic and physical security – are all intrinsically interconnected. Recent success in halting the proposed conversion bill is an important step, but much urgent action is still needed to ensure the freedom and equality on which the future of Israel depends.
By Arieh O’Sullivan , The Media Line News Agency/The Jerusalem Post
22 July 2010
Selected excerpts
Fischer: 70% of 10% of the population doesn't work.
The growing number of haredim choosing religious studies over gainful employment is unsustainable, and arrangements have to be made to force them into work, Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer said Monday.
“By the time you are up to 10 percent of the population of whom 70 percent of the male part of the population doesn’t work, you are getting to a macroeconomic issue,” he said at a media conference. “What is more of concern is the rate of growth of this community, this population relative to the rest of the population.”
With birthrates three times the Israeli average, haredi communities are mushrooming. Yet many of the communities are increasingly impoverished, with 65 percent of the men unemployed and many living on charity.
“If something is not sustainable it will stop,” Fischer said. “This is not sustainable. We can’t have an ever-increasing proportion of the population continuing to not go to work.”
Economists say haredim are so limited in their education that they fall below third-world children, which would make it difficult for this community to supply engineers, physicists and doctors.
United Torah Judaism MK Menahem Eliezer Moses said even when haredi men learn a profession, they are often discriminated against in the secular workplace.
“With Hashem’s help, we will be a majority, and that is good because it’ll bring closer the arrival of Moshiah,” Moses said. “If the secular come begging us for work, we’ll gladly give it to them.”
Full article
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The Governor of the Bank of Israel made his remarks at a closed meeting of foreign correspondents.
Globes correspondent
21 July 2010
Selected excerpts
Governor of the Bank of Israel Stanley Fischer told foreign correspondents this week that one of the greatest challenges faced by the Israeli economy was dealing with poverty in the haredi (ultra-orthodox) population, and that the problem was worsening.
Kalman reports Fischer as saying, "This is not sustainable. We can't have an ever-increasing proportion of the population continuing to not go to work. So it's going to change, somehow or the other. The question is does that change happen in social conflict, in political conflict, or can it be helped to happen consensually and constructively?"
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Matthew Kalman, AOL NEWS
21 July 2010
Selected excerpts
JERUSALEM (July 21) -- God himself labored for six days before resting on the Sabbath -- but at least two-thirds of Israel's ultra-orthodox Jewish men aren't working at all, and it's becoming a major economic problem.
The governor of Israel's central bank warned on Monday that the rising number of ultra-orthodox men who refuse to join the workforce could trigger "social conflict" unless they take a lesson from the Bible and get to work.
Israel's robust economy, fueled by a generation of high-tech entrepreneurs, has helped the "Start-Up Nation" weather the global recession ahead of the U.S. and Europe. Also, Israel earlier this year won admission to the OECD, the exclusive club of the world's top economies. Israel's expenditure on R&D, at nearly 5 percent of Gross Domestic Product, is the highest in the world and its booming technology sector has brought enviable economic growth and stability at a time of global crisis.
But the growing ultra-orthodox population, their deepening poverty, noninvolvement in the labor force and private school system that encourages a nonproductive, scholarly lifestyle, could threaten the country's future economic stability.
The problem has become a major issue in political power-play between the secular majority parties and the tiny religious parties that hold the balance of power in Israel's fragile government coalitions. The 700,000 ultra-orthodox among Israel's population of 7.5 million are Israel's poorest sector. They have large families, with an average of nearly seven children per couple. Sixty percent of the community lives below the poverty line and the proportion is rising.
"This is not sustainable," warned Fischer. "We can't have an ever-increasing proportion of the population continuing to not go to work. So it's going to change, somehow or the other. The question is does that change happen in social conflict, in political conflict, or can it be helped to happen consensually and constructively?"
"Around 70 percent of the men don't work in the formal labor force. This is an absolute guarantee of being poor, if you don't work," Fischer said. "This is not a problem in the United States among the haredi [ultra-orthodox] community -- there, they work," Fischer said. "It is a problem in Israel. The question is why."
He said government incentives encouraging haredi students to claim welfare contributed to the problem and required a change in government policy. Last month, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that giving stipends to needy seminary students while denying them to secular university students is illegal. Religious parties have vowed to change the law.
Fischer's views are shared by Dan Ben-David, director of the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, who says nonemployment in the ultra-orthodox sector has skyrocketed in recent years. Ben-David says nearly one in five Israeli men between ages 35 and 54 are not part of the labor force -- 60 percent higher than the average among nations in the OECD.
"People say that the haredim don't work, that it's a religious or a cultural thing, but that isn't true," Ben-David said. "Thirty years ago they did work. Then, the rate of nonemployment was 21 percent. Now it's 65 percent. It grew threefold."
"It is still possible to change direction," he added. "The government must understand the implications of these trends and adopt a comprehensive program to change them without delay,"