Israel cannot solve its draft crisis without confronting the status quo - opinion

One of the hottest issues concerning Israeli voters in regard to the upcoming elections is the equality in sharing the burden of military service. The anticipated conscription law will formally legislate and settle once and for all which citizens must enlist into mandatory military or national service, what consequences draft evaders will face, and how much weight religion and religious beliefs will receive in the considerations.

Beyond the dire manpower needs of the IDF, one of the reasons this issue is so sensitive and seemingly existential is the perception that the law will set the tone and send a clear message about the balance of powers between state and religion in Israel.

If all citizens must serve, it’s a win for the state. If Jews who are “more” religious are exempt and treated as privileged citizens, it’s a win for religion. Unfortunately, this is a misconception, and the tone has already been set.

The prolonged situation in which nearly the entire haredi (ultra-Orthodox) sector has consistently refused to participate in the shared burden of military service is not the root of the problem but merely a symptom of the disease otherwise known as the status quo. The status quo is the term used to describe the relationship between religion and state in Israel.

The status quo with the haredim is Israel's big problem

It started from a letter that David Ben-Gurion, then chairman of The Jewish Agency for Israel, signed with Agudat Israel in 1947, in order to receive the haredi party’s support for the Zionist plea to a UN committee regarding the establishment of a Jewish state.

This letter outlined the religious character of the national institutions (and future government) regarding four subjects: Shabbat, kashrut, marriage, and education. It effectively handed over control to ultra-Orthodox politicians and rabbis to dictate policy for religious affairs in the name of the state.

Even before we had a country, we lost the power to recognize that Judaism does not belong to any one person or group, and that the state must treat Judaism as an equally shared public resource. It seems that we created a Jewish state without first agreeing on what Judaism and being Jewish means, and haredi players swiftly filled that vacuum. Decades later, we are still suffering the aftermath of this compromise.

The bigger picture of the status quo today includes the corrupt monopoly of the Chief Rabbinate, government discrimination against liberal Jewish streams, public funding of non-state haredi schools, lack of public transportation on Shabbat, and more.

This systemic self-destructive behavior of Israeli governments, letting one group decide and legislate what is religiously (and therefore civically) acceptable in the national homeland of the entire Jewish people, is the root cause of today’s inequality in sharing the burden of military service.

The power handed to haredi parties time after time, combined with the absence of involvement by Jews of all other streams, has given them a sense of entitlement and ownership over something that belongs to all of us.

In order for Israel to be a country for all Jews, it needs functioning democratic foundations such as rule of law, equality before the law, standardized education, and religious law being bound by civil law. Otherwise, we will never achieve any degree of social cohesion, and religious politics will continue acting as a barrier between us.

Anchoring certain religious interpretations in criminal law that are punishable with incarceration is coercive and theocratic. Defying criminal law in the name of Halacha is manipulative and polarizing.

Let me be clear, I want the haredim to be a vital part of Israeli society. I don’t think that the solution is to reject everything they want. I also don’t believe that Jewish values inherently contradict democracy – on the contrary. But the political reality has allowed the ultra-Orthodox to undermine society and democracy in the name of religion, instead of being equal and appreciated partners who contribute to our shared onus. Tough decisions need to be made to fix this absurdity at its source.

A conscription law is crucial and urgent, but without addressing the entire status quo it is like putting a band-aid on an infected wound – it may look better from the outside, but the real problem will only continue getting worse. Our leaders need to step up and state clearly that we need to thoroughly reconfigure the status between state and religion and create a constitution that will determine the Jewish and democratic identity of the country.

These contentious issues have time and again caused coalitions and governments to fall apart with no fundamental changes. As the election approaches, we have an opportunity to allow these challenges to be the building blocks of the next government, and not, as in the past, the wrecking ball.

The writer is a third-year student of education and political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an active reservist.