The Basic 'Torah Study' Law

These images speak for themselves (Rationalist Judaism)

Torah study is an underlying value of a Jewish state. Unfortunately, this view is not shared by all of Israel’s Jewish inhabitants. There are some on the far left who reject that premise entirely. Others may see some value in it, but certainly do not follow all of its laws. In fact, there are cities in Israel that promote values that are anathema to the Torah. How many people know, for example, that Tel Aviv is considered one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world? That is hardly a Torah value.

It is with that in mind that I bring up an article in Arutz Sheva, which reported the following:

“Knesset plenum approves Basic Law: Torah Study in preliminary reading, recognizing Torah study as an underlying value of the State.”

It passed by a vote of 56–43.

It is sad that a Jewish state needs to pass a law recognizing the study of what makes it Jewish. It would be like trying to define American democracy without any knowledge of the Constitution. But as noted, many Jews do not see the Torah as having much relevance to contemporary values and do not study its laws at all, considering them archaic and irrelevant. So I am, in fact, in favor of passing such a law. I would even require every school - religious or secular - to include Torah study as part of its curriculum through high school.

That being said, there is more to this law than merely recognizing Torah study as an official value of the State of Israel. The bill would also serve to exempt anyone from military service if they study Torah full time, considering those students to be on par with those serving in the military in terms of their contribution to the welfare of the country. They would therefore be compensated accordingly.

That Torah study is important to the welfare of the country should not be in dispute. But comparing it to military service does a great disservice to those in the military whose sacrifices are far beyond those made by individuals who study Torah full time. It is insulting in the extreme to even suggest such a comparison.

This is not, God forbid, meant to denigrate Torah study or even to suggest that its value is subordinate to that of military service. It is simply to point out that compensation for contributions to society should be commensurate with the sacrifices being made.

Only fools would say that the IDF has no value, or that Torah study alone protects the Jewish people. Anyone with a conscience - including Charedim - must recognize the enormous value of those on the front lines who place themselves in harm’s way on a daily basis.

What the authors of this bill fail to recognize (or admit) is the vast difference between the sacrifices involved in full-time Torah study and those made by soldiers on the battlefield, where people are killed or seriously injured all the time. It is that lack of recognition that upsets not only secular Israelis but even many religious Israelis…

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Hating Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhau.

Melanie Phillips is someone whose views resonate with me. Her unabashedly pro-Israel position is based on reality rather than politics—a reality she exposes with facts rather than the predisposed anti-Israel version of reality that much of the mainstream media presents to the world. Her views on the State of Israel and antisemitism are virtually identical to mine. The only difference is that she is a far better communicator.

And she did it again - writing about a Jewish leader who has become very popular to hate—from either side of the political aisle, especially as it pertains to how the media views him. There is no love lost for Israel’s longest-serving and arguably most consequential prime minister in its nearly 80-year history.

Benjamin Netanyahu has become the fall guy for anything that goes wrong in Israel or affects the Jewish people. The mere mention of his name in almost any context often brings out derision from many well-intentioned Jews. That reaction is frequently based not on the actual facts, but on the way those facts are reported by the mainstream media.

To take one prominent example of this phenomenon, consider the accusations made against Netanyahu regarding the war in Gaza. The BBC and The New York Times—two of the world’s most widely respected news organizations—consistently paint Netanyahu’s Israel in Nazi-like terms. The rest of the mainstream media often treats that characterization as undisputed fact. That, of course, has an outsized impact on public opinion.

Netanyahu has been accused of ordering the IDF to disregard Palestinian casualties in pursuit of Hamas terrorists. Media reliance on Hamas casualty figures—emphasizing large numbers of women and children without independent verification—becomes the only “truth” that is reported. It is a “truth” that does not differentiate between terrorists and innocent civilians. It is a “truth” that often ignores Hamas’s deliberate strategy of embedding itself among the most vulnerable civilian populations in order to maximize civilian casualties.

That “truth,” repeated on the nightly news for months at a time, makes accusations of genocide against Netanyahu easy to believe. Absent from much of that reporting is the fact that Netanyahu’s Israel is the only country in the history of warfare that routinely warned civilians of impending attacks and gave them time to evacuate. Yet images of destruction, coupled with a relentlessly negative narrative, made the accusations seem legitimate.

This kind of hostility extends far beyond the prejudiced narratives promoted by much of the media and influences many well-intentioned Jews.

Ms. Phillips puts it all into proper perspective, asking in the subtitle of her Jewish Chronicle article:

“Are the ‘If Only Netanyahu’ crowd really so blinded by hatred?”

I am sorry to say that I think the answer is yes…

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Is the US a Paper Tiger?

The president and the ayatollah: Who’s really winning the war?

There must be regime change. There is no other alternative. Whatever it takes.

This has always been my view. Long before the U.S. targeted Iran with its most recent military action in late February. When the US and Israel struck, I thought – or at least hoped that this was the beginning of the end of that terrorist regime.

The thinking then was that Iran’s murder of tens of thousands of its own citizens, combined with the degradation of its military capabilities, would generate an internal revolt that would overthrow their government and restore the freedom its citizens lost when Iranian Islamists forcibly took over the country 47 years ago and transformed it into an Islamist dictatorship. A regime that ruled through iron-fisted terror rooted in a theology that sees the murder of protesters as a religious obligation, since as they saw it - those protesters pining for freedom represented a rebellion against God!

While it is difficult to imagine the current Iranian leadership surviving the military devastation at the hands of the US and Israeli military, they have in fact more than survived. if Iran is not brought to complete surrender, and allowed to survive through some negotiated settlement, then it will have effectively won. They will surely continue to pursue their goals, and any agreement they make will not be worth the paper it is written on.

Furthermore, if allowed to survive, Iran will retain the ability to cause havoc whenever it chooses. It has already demonstrated that despite its military setbacks, it can still threaten international commerce. In effect, the Strait of Hormuz is their atomic bomb - an economic weapon that can be deployed at a moment’s notice. Its ability to disrupt shipping has inflicted economic hardship on much of the civilized world.

If the president ultimately makes some kind of deal with these terrorists, then his critics will have been proven right. He will have accomplished little. Even if a new agreement appears better than the one reached by President Obama, which is at best - debatable , it will be a major victory for Iran.

Any other regime that had suffered Iran’s level of military devastation might have conceded defeat. But not a regime whose motivation is fundamentally theological. The only way it will surrender is if its terrorist military arm, the IRGC, is completely destroyed. That will require a major U.S. military invasion.

There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that the danger Iran poses to the civilized world justifies such action, even though it would almost certainly result in American casualties.

I do not say this lightly. Every human being killed in war is a tragedy of immense proportion. In a sense, an entire world dies with each individual death. The reverberations spread far beyond the immediate family and strike at the core of the collective American conscience.

America’s appetite for war soured long ago after more than 40,000 American soldiers died trying to preserve democracy in South Vietnam and prevent the spread of communism throughout Southeast Asia. After years of fighting, a peace agreement was reached, U.S. troops withdrew, and South Vietnam fell shortly thereafter. The country was reunified under communist rule.

Subsequent wars have often produced similarly disappointing outcomes. It is therefore easy to understand why the American people are deeply skeptical of military intervention. The idea of losing even one soldier in a conflict that achieves little if anything is something no American parent wants to contemplate.

Many Americans look at the world before the attack on Iran and remember relative peace and a thriving economy. They see those conditions now threatened and therefore prefer that President Trump make whatever deal is necessary to restore stability.

What many Americans fail to understand, however, is the existential danger Iran poses to our own security if it is allowed at any time in the future - to enrich uranium toward weapons-grade levels. They do not fully appreciate that Iran’s theological goals are real, nor that its support for terrorist proxies was part of a broader strategy to advance those goals. If the regime survives, those ambitions will survive with it.

Without understanding that danger, I too would oppose further military action.

But there is another aspect of this issue that is rarely discussed…

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A Message from HaRav Moshe Hillel Hirsch

HaRav Moshe Hillel Hirsch (YWN)

I was sent a video this morning of a recent address given in Hebrew by Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch. A Rosh Yeshiva in Israel who is considered by much of the Charedi world to be one of the two Gedolei HaDor. The video included a rough English (Yinglish?) translation of his remarks, which follows – interspersed in some cases with my translation:

“We Are in the Middle of a War”

The Rosh Yeshiva opened his remarks regarding what he described as the r’difas lomdei Torah (the mortal pursuit of those who study Torah):

“There is a very difficult matzav (situation) today. We are in a war, mamash (actually) a war. This is a very difficult inyan (subject) for the bochurim, and the bochurim have to understand that we are in a war.

In a time of war, sometimes there are things that are difficult, and there has to be mesirus nefesh (self sacfrfice) for the war. It cannot be that everything continues exactly as usual when there is a war.”

“I am not referring to the war with Iran. I am referring to the war between us and those from within who are fighting against us.

This is what we have to be machnis (internalize): There is no other way—only through the Ribbono Shel Olam.

And there is a klal. The Gemara in Shabbos says that HaKadosh Baruch Hu says: ‘If I see that they want Me, then I want them; if they do not want Me, I do not want them.’ Middah k’neged middah” (measure for measure).

In strong words rarely heard from a mainstream rabbinic leader, HaRav Hirsch added:

“It is muttar to be mechaven in ‘V’lamalshinim al tehi tikvah... v’chol haresha k’rega toveid.’ If all of Klal Yisrael would be mechaven in this, HaKadosh Baruch Hu would do what needs to be done.”

The ‘Yinglish’ in this last paragraph can be translated as follows:

It is permissible to concentrate when reciting the words (in Shemoneh Esrei) of “And for informers (slanderers) let there be no hope... “all wickedness should perish in an instant,”. If all of Israel would concentrate on this, God would do what needs to be done.

I have to apologize for my previous mild interpretation of how mainstream Charedi leaders feel about violent opposition to government attempts to draft Charedim. I’m not so sure they are entirely opposed to them.

While Rav Hirsch did not explicitly endorse violence here, he may as well have. 

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60 Minutes and Anti-Israel Bias

Scott Pelley - late of 60 Minutes (WSJ)

Scott Pelley seems like a truly nice guy. An honest reporter who doesn’t seem to inject his personal biases into his reporting. Biases that, I’m sure, tend heavily toward the left. I am sorry to see him go.

Yesterday, the mainstream media reported that he was fired from his job at the mega-popular TV news magazine, 60 Minutes.

What precipitated his departure was a heated confrontation at a staff meeting with 60 Minutes’ newly installed executive producer, Nick Bilton.

Apparently, Pelley came into that meeting with ‘both guns blazing’! Upset about the departures of the show’s previous producer, Tanya Simon, and two of its regular correspondents, Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega.

The issue at hand is the accusation that CBS’s new management has tried to interfere with the journalistic integrity and freedom of expression of its reporters by forcing them to insert “lies” into their reports. Pelley argued that their stories should be left exactly as they reported them in their supposedly pristine objectivity.

I had to laugh when I read those comments, which were made by both Pelley and Vega. If I had to guess, I would say that Pelley was parroting what Vega had claimed, reflecting her own bias. A bias that became overtly obvious about a year ago in a 60 Minutes segment that was so slanted against Israel that even a child would have noticed it.

This is what I said about it at the time:

Vega interviewed some disgruntled State Department employees who had resigned over what they claimed was the U.S. government’s mishandling of the “atrocities” being committed by the Netanyahu government in its war with Hamas. The report made it seem as though these individuals possessed inside information and irrefutable evidence of Israeli atrocities, which they described in considerable detail.

None of this was verified by independent sources. And it was certainly far from established fact. Yet, as is often 60 Minutes’ habit, the report made it sound as though its version of events was the only truth. They had absolutely no problem ignoring Israel’s side of the story—which, in my view, was probably much closer to reality than what 60 Minutes was peddling.

This is what they consider balanced reporting.

What could be less balanced than that hit piece? This is the kind of reporting that Vega doesn’t want any ‘lies’ inserted into. By ‘lies’ she means facts and perspectives that challenge her preconceived notion of the truth.

To show that this wasn’t an isolated incident of anti-Israel bias, there was the harsh rebuke by the then CBS new director of reporter Tony Dokoupil who - during an interview - dared to challenge the author of an anti-Israel book by asking why he reported only the Palestinian perspective while ignoring the Israeli one. That rebuke generated honest pushback from some of CBS’s own correspondents—an unusual event given the sensitivity surrounding job security in network news.

At about that same time, a politically conservative, pro-Israel news executive, Bari Weiss, was brought in to help reshape the news division. She has since elevated Dokoupil to the nightly news anchor and has been involved in broader efforts to overhaul the network’s news operation and change its leftward tilt.

I never thought I would see the day when 60 Minutes would face serious internal challenges to its leftist editorial culture and attempt to become a more politically balanced news magazine.

I, for one, am more than happy to see Vega go. I don’t know much about Alfonsi’s views, but I can guess based on criticism she received over one of her own anti-Trump segments.

I wish I could say, ‘Problem solved’. All will be well, and future broadcasts will be more balanced - if not more favorable to Israel. Sadly, that will very likely not be the case…

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A Righteous War that Must be Fought

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)

Iran’s attack against Kuwait this morning made me angry - and more convinced than ever that the United States and Israel should resume full-scale military action against Iran.

I don’t know what the president is waiting for. What will it take for him to finish off a regime that has proven itself to be one of the most radical and dangerous states of the modern era? A regime whose primary target is the very country he swore to protect and defend from enemies, foreign and domestic. A regime whose co-primary target is Israel, currently America’s most important ally in the region if not the world.

The fact that Iran has brutally repressed and killed tens of thousands of its own people for the “crime” of seeking freedom is reason enough to resume the war. Equally compelling is Iran’s openly declared goal of ‘restoring’ Islamic rule to the Holy Land, even if that means exterminating its over 7 million Jewish inhabitants.

Another compelling reason is Iran’s determination to dominate the Middle East through a pan-Islamic vision led by its Shiite ideology. In pursuit of that goal, it has shown a willingness to attack neighboring Muslim countries. Today’s ballistic missile strike that reportedly hit an airport terminal in Kuwait is only the latest example. The regime appears to have little regard for the lives of fellow Muslims when they stand in the way of its ambitions.

Iran has also demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice its own supporters if doing so advances its cause. The regime glorifies martyrdom, whether voluntary or not, whenever it serves its ideological objectives.

Yet another reason for resuming the war is Iran’s relentless drive to acquire the means to achieve these goals. By now, the entire world knows of its determination to become a nuclear power. Not to mention its efforts to develop increasingly sophisticated ballistic missile systems capable of reaching targets as far as the US. Iran has already demonstrated missile capabilities that can reach Europe. And its missile arsenal appears far larger than previously believed. Those missiles could eventually serve as delivery systems for nuclear warheads.

Nor should it be lost on the president that virtually every Iranian expatriate who fled the regime understands exactly what it is and has urged the United States and its ally Israel to finish the job.

I am not a military strategist. But this much seems clear: Iran’s military has suffered devastating losses, and its command structure has been severely weakened. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is little more that another terrorist group similar to Hamas and Hezbollah. Only much larger. And seems to be operating independently of any leadership. Driven by a level of religious fervor that makes them almost impossible to defeat without reducing them to an underground terrorist cell.

Iran’s new supreme leader has yet to make an appearance. Whether he remains fully capable of exercising authority is an open question. Despite their claims to the contrary.

It does not help that many Democrats and their allies in the media continue repeating Iran’s claims that it has somehow won the war and that America and its allies are worse off now than before the conflict began. Some even argue that remaining in the Obama-era nuclear agreement (JCPOA) would have produced a better outcome.

I disagree…

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Charedim, Violent Protests, and a Boycott

Dozens of Charedim break into a Beit Shemesh police station (TOI)

Sorry. I’m just not buying it.

I do not for a moment believe that what happened a couple of days ago in Bet Shemesh is in any way representative of the Charedi world as a whole. The following was reported in the Times of Israel:

A large group of Haredi protesters broke into a police station compound in Beit Shemesh, rioting and clashing with police officers overnight Sunday, following the arrest of an ultra-Orthodox draft evader in the city.

The rioters threw stones, attempted to block a main highway, and set fire to nearby brush, as footage shared on social media showed a crowd of jeering ultra-Orthodox men hurling debris at the police station as others forced open the gate, allowing them to push their way in.

I truly believe that most mainstream Charedim are as appalled by what these people did as the rest of Israel is. These young men are not representative of the typical Charedi. They belong to the Jerusalem faction. Which has a history of reacting violently to things they oppose. Something I doubt most mainstream Charedi leaders approve of.

That said, what these misguided young Charedim were reacting to was something their leadership has often reacted to in similarly harsh terms, albeit only verbally. These young people simply put their leaders’ words into action. I am quite sure, however, that was not the intent of those leaders’ strident rhetoric, harsh though it may have been.

What happened is that one of their fellow yeshiva students had been arrested for refusing to register for the draft, a legal requirement imposed on all Israeli citizens from whom inductees are drawn. It is no secret that Charedi leadership is deeply upset about this requirement after decades long total exemption.

As unfair and upsetting as many Israelis found that arrangement, the nation had largely become accustomed to it, and the IDF seemed able to function without Charedi participation. And while there were a few meager attempts by the government to change that situation, they continued to allocate substantial funding to yeshivos with relatively little oversight. Although much of mainstream Israeli society resented the arrangement, it became part of the status quo.

Then came October 7, 2023.

That changed everything...

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Is Israel Worse than Hamas?

Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres

How many people know that the Jewish people of the State of Israel are among the lowest forms of humanity there is? The UN has now effectively placed Israel among the world’s moral outcasts, and as we all know, the UN’s credentials are beyond reproach. If the UN says so, it must be true.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres recently included Israeli entities on a UN blacklist related to conflict-linked sexual violence.

The problem is that the allegations underlying that decision are hardly verified. To date, no publicly available evidence has emerged that conclusively establishes the horrific accusations made against Israeli personnel. Yet those accusations continue to circulate as though they have already been proven.

One of the most prominent figures to amplify these allegations was Nicholas Kristof. In a lengthy New York Times opinion piece, Kristof recounted allegations of sexual abuse against Palestinian detainees, including some claims that many observers viewed as highly implausible if not impossible.

And yet, Kristof appeared far more willing to accept these allegations than to rigorously test them. Instead, he relied heavily on anonymous sources and has abandoned traditional journalistic standards used to distinguish fact from fiction.

I have addressed Kristof’s column before. But no one has done a better job of exposing its weaknesses than Jonathan Rosenblum.

As Jonathan notes, many of these allegations initially gained little traction when they first surfaced because they were considered difficult to believe and lacked corroborating evidence. But once Kristof devoted a major New York Times opinion piece to them, they received worldwide attention.

According to Jonathan:

“Only when New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof, a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, published a 4,000-word opinion piece in which he recirculated Euro-Med’s most astounding charge about the degrading abuse of Palestinian prisoners did that claim gain widespread attention. It shouldn’t have.”

Jonathan argues that Kristof departed from basic journalistic safeguards. The allegations relied heavily on anonymous testimony, often lacking specific dates, locations, or other details that would allow independent verification.

Moreover, the issue of motive cannot be ignored. Hamas has devoted enormous resources - including blatant lies - toward winning the propaganda war against Israel.

This would hardly be the first time that dramatic accusations against Israel have received widespread media attention before later being disproven. Numerous claims made during the Gaza war have become subjects of intense controversy - later shown to be false. And yet continued to be reported with great certainty by the media.

I am reminded of an interview not long ago conducted by PBS NewsHour host Geoff Bennett with Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon. Bennett cited accusations that Israel had deliberately targeted and killed journalists in Gaza. Danon denied the allegation, while acknowledging that journalists had at times been inadvertently killed in combat zones where Hamas operatives were being targeted. And that some of those journalists were actually Hamas operatives. Bennett rejected Dannon’s response. Doubling down on the accusation that the innocent Palestinian journalists in Gaza were deliberately killed by order of the IDF.

Fact is that accusations against Israel are frequently treated as established fact by the media long before the evidence has been fully examined.

It has also proven to be true that the world media is predisposed to accept Palestinian claims at face value while applying a far more skeptical standard to Israeli responses. Whether intentional or not, the obvious result is a distorted picture of events.

Jonathan cites numerous examples in which sensational accusations were widely reported by respected media organizations only to collapse and proven false under scrutiny. Yet the corrections rarely receive the same attention as the original allegations.

What makes the timing of Kristof’s column particularly ugly…

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The Trauma of War and Drafting Charedim

Charedim protesting the draft and blocking traffic (Matzav)

Mission accomplished. The Charedi yeshiva world successfully averted the arrest of a student for refusing to register for the draft. As noted on Matzav:

“A dramatic confrontation unfolded shortly after midnight on Highway 1 leading to Yerushalayim when police attempted to detain a yeshiva bochur and transfer him to military authorities. The arrest was ultimately prevented after dozens of protesters rushed to the scene and blocked the roadway...

“After a lengthy standoff and a heated demonstration, police reportedly withdrew from the area and released the yeshiva student.”

As disgusting as this protest was, it is unfortunately not surprising coming from the “Jerusalem Faction,” a segment of the Charedi yeshiva world that vehemently opposes any compromise with the Israeli government that does not completely exempt every single Yeshiva student from serving in the IDF in any capacity.

While the Charedi world once had a more moderate faction whose leadership agreed to some form of compromise whereby students would at least register for the draft, it now seems that the mindset of the Jerusalem Faction has taken hold among their current leadership.

And then October 7^th happened.

Israel went to war against its enemies with a determination last seen during the 6 day war. That required maximum participation of its citizen-soldiers. Much of Israel’s military strength comes from reserve officers and soldiers who were called up for extended service as the nation mobilized for war.

That’s when things really started to fall apart.

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The numbers simply do not add up. There are not enough soldiers to fight the enormous enemy bulwark dedicated to Israel’s destruction. A bulwark consisting of Iranian proxies armed and financed by a regime whose 47-year mantra of “Death to Israel” was more than a slogan. It was a declaration of war by proxy against the Jewish state!

Israel has gone to war without a sufficient number of troops that would provide any meaningful respite from the fatigue of war. IDF soldiers have been required to serve extraordinarily long tours of duty. This has taken a severe psychological toll. Many soldiers have lost jobs and suffered family disruptions that may never fully heal. And this doesn’t even begin to address the many who have already sacrificed life and limb in defense of their people. A danger every combat soldier faces daily.

The only realistic way to lessen this burden would be for the only segment of able-bodied young men left that is large enough to do that. But which is currently exempt from sharing that responsibility - Charedi yeshiva students.

Yet the Charedi leadership adamantly rejects any army service at all for their students. Insisting that their dedication to Torah study supersedes any military obligation. Their leaders often argue that it is Torah study that keeps the Jewish people safe, not soldiers fighting Israel’s enemies on multiple fronts. They also maintain that military service would expose students to an environment incompatible with their religious sensitivities and, in some cases violate Halacha.

I understand their reservations. Nor do I question their commitment and dedication to Torah study. On the contrary, I admire it.

But at this moment, I am far more sympathetic to those who are doing the fighting - for what should be obvious reasons.

Unfortunately, those reasons do not seem nearly as obvious to much of the Charedi world. Which is why I was so angered by what I saw yesterday in Mishpacha Magazine.

It appeared in the form of a short paragraph placed between two columns: one by managing editor Shoshana Friedman and an “Open Mic” column by Danny Louis.

The message was that it is appalling that Israel’s police force has been asked to assist the military in locating and arresting Charedi draft evaders. While acknowledging that the draft, the army’s needs, and its character are very complex:

Vey that in a Jewish country, the official organs of law enforcement have been asked to arrest young men who choose to spend their days and nights learning Torah… it it is not overly dramatic to shudder at the repercussions of this initiative at a time when this country so desperately needs spiritual merit.

To say that this statement outraged me would be a gross understatement.

No one who understands the value of Torah study would deny its importance to the very survival of our people. But to insinuate that the spiritual merit provided by those who both study and fight - as do students in Hesder yeshivos - is somehow of lesser value is insulting in the extreme…

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Are Orthodox Jews at a Financial Breaking Point?

An Orthodox Jewish couple walking in the streets of Lakewood (TOI)

I’ve been wondering about this for quite some time: How on earth can a typical Orthodox Jewish family survive on a middle-class income today?

When I got married and raised four children on what was then considered a middle-income salary, I never felt the kind of crushing financial pressure Orthodox families face now. We managed to buy a home, replace our car every few years, take modest family vacations, and cover the usual expenses — mortgage, utilities, insurance, and healthcare.

At the same time, we also handled the added costs that come with Orthodox Jewish life: Jewish education for four children, including a gap year in Israel, kosher food, Yom Tov expenses, and lifecycle events like bar mitzvahs and weddings. We even managed to save for retirement, which - together with Social Security and Medicare - allows us to maintain a relatively comfortable standard of living today.

Now, however, even families earning well into six figures are struggling. A recent article in The Times of Israel described a religious New Jersey couple earning over $150,000 a year who still “can’t make it work.” The article noted that even families making $400,000 can feel financial strain.

What happened?

The biggest reason is obvious: tuition. When my children were young, day school tuition was relatively affordable. When our children started it was under $1,000 per child, eventually rising to about $5,000 by the end of elementary school. Today, tuition in many Orthodox schools can reach $25,000 per child per year.

For a family with four children, that can mean $100,000 annually before taxes. Add kosher food, housing, insurance, and every other normal family expense, and it becomes easy to see why even a $150,000 income is not enough.

Why did tuition rise so dramatically? Mostly because schools had no choice.

Modern religious schools provide far more services than they once did, but the biggest expense is teacher salaries. In my day, many teachers earned very little and supplemented their income with summer jobs or afternoon work. Eventually schools realized that if they wanted qualified educators, they had to offer livable salaries. That significantly increased school budgets, which in turn drove up tuition exponentially.

Schools also build tuition assistance into their budgets because most middle-class families now require help. Even after a $10,000 scholarship, parents will owe $15,000 per child. For four children, that’s still $60,000 a year in pre-tax income. And many families have more than four children.

Meanwhile, all the other costs of Orthodox life remain — especially housing in religious neighborhoods, which has become increasingly unaffordable. Well beyond the means of most young couples.

This creates an almost impossible situation...

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