Reply To: Sharing the burden – Why Israel needs Chareidim to survive.

AAQ said: “it is in the gemorah whether one can take someone�s life instead of his own � who says your blood is redder. And, as with all contracts, they require agreement of both sides. If you can convince the rest of Israelis of your mailos, I�ll have no problems with that at all!”

YYA: Don’t understand what you want to say here. This isn’t “whether one can take someone�s life instead of his own”. No ‘contract’ or agreement could ever permit such a thing. What about people my age (of all religious affiliations) who anyway don’t go to the army? Are we “giving someone’s life instead of our own”? This isn’t how the dynamic works, and this isn’t how these decisions are made. The rest of the Israelis do not decide what the Torah says or what Hashem wants from us. That’s all this boils down to. If you think that you understand better than a broad consensus of Gedolei Torah what Hashem wants us to do, so be happy and do what you want. We will listen to them, not you. Nothing personal. Do you also decide for yourself on medical or legal matters, or do you ask the professionals?

AAQ said: “So, the question becomes: why don�t non-charedi Israelis value great charedi contribution in growing families, learning Torah, providing religious services to others, having great middos, inviting foreign investment, providing kiddush Hashem and kiddush medina story in international papers about great Torah lifestyle, etc? You can�t blame this on anti-religious sentiment � B�H majority of Israelis are either observant or traditional, with many others indifferent rather than anti-religious.”

YYA: You answered your own question. Many (observant, traditional, or ‘sympatish’) Israelis do value the Chareidi contribution in some of those ways. Those who don’t are mostly part of the other group who are anti-religious (or more accurately, brainwashed by the media most of the time.) There are also RZ in both of those camps. The more R in the former, the more Z (sometimes) in the latter.

The truth is that at ‘street level’, in real life, there is much less anti-Chareidi sentiment here than you would think from reading the clickbait headlines.