Over the course of the past year, it has become clear that much-vaunted government efforts to transform ḥaredi society have come to naught: yeshiva students still receive draft deferments, laws increasing the secular-education requirements at ḥaredi schools have been repealed, and subsidies have been reinstated. However, argues Yedidia Stern, this return to the “status quo ante” doesn’t mean stagnation; it’s only a reminder that governments can encourage social change, but can’t bring it about:
Politics and the law have only a limited role to play: to permit [beneficial social] change, support it, and not impede it.
[C]hange from below is already taking place. Today, about half of all ultra-Orthodox men hold jobs; the number of ultra-Orthodox individuals enrolled in colleges and universities has grown several-fold; and the percentage of “modern” ultra-Orthodox families who want their sons to receive a general, and not only Torah, education has expanded. . . .
Going forward, the public purse must be used intelligently. . . . Economic benefits to those who do not serve in the IDF and do not work should be curtailed, on the one hand; but the coffers should be opened to pay for employment-oriented higher-educational programs and the promotion of jobs in the ultra-Orthodox sector, on the other.
Rather than reduce the total budgetary outlay for these categories, funds should be distributed in a different fashion than they have been until now. The ultra-Orthodox public will both understand and support this.
Read more on Jewish Week: http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial-opinion/opinion/new-approach-dealing-israels-ultra-orthodox