The haredi<\/a> world holds that immersion in Torah study is the real source for Israel\u2019s security and should be viewed as a higher form of national service.\u00a0<\/p>\n So, in the midst of wartime, there are 100,000 men evading the draft, defying Supreme Court rulings, while their leaders call for tax revolts against the state if the draft dodgers are arrested. But the last few years have shown that anti-pluralism policies and rhetoric have escalated, with close collaboration between Likud and their ultra-Orthodox and far-right coalition partners.<\/p>\n Working hand in hand with the ultra-Orthodox parties, the government is imposing Orthodox control over marriage and divorce, conversion, kashrut, burial, and Jewish education, as well as expanding the authority of the rabbinical courts and the Chief Rabbinate.<\/p>\n The result is religious coercion, harm to gender equality, marginalization of non-Orthodox Judaism in Israel and the Diaspora, and the systematic and deliberate neglect of hundreds of thousands of children in ultra-Orthodox schools that do not teach mathematics, English, or civic literacy; these children are being prepared, in effect, for a life of dependence rather than contribution.<\/p>\n And then there is the money.<\/p>\n For decades, Diaspora Jewish leaders and philanthropists have responded generously to Israel\u2019s appeals for support, under the belief that the state cannot fund its social and educational needs alone.<\/p>\n But three studies published in recent months are telling.<\/p>\n The Israel Democracy Institute puts direct and indirect state subsidies to the ultra-Orthodox sector at a conservative NIS 35 to 37 billion for 2025 alone.<\/p>\n The Aaron Institute for Economic Policy at Reichman University finds that a non-haredi Jewish family in the middle socioeconomic brackets pays the state roughly NIS 1,500 net per month, while a haredi family at the same income level receives NIS 1,350 from the state.<\/p>\n And a study by the conservative Kohelet Policy Forum calculated that an ultra-Orthodox household receives a net average of NIS 5,983 per month from the state, while a non-ultra-Orthodox Jewish household pays a net NIS 8,842 per month \u2013 a gap of nearly NIS 15,000.<\/p>\n What we are looking at is not a welfare safety net stretched beyond its means.<\/p>\n It is a parallel economy, underwritten by political extortion and a government that manufactures gaps rather than confronting them. Leading Israeli economists warn that Israel will collapse into a third-world economy if nothing is done.<\/p>\n Chief Justice Sohlberg’s home attacked<\/p>\n![\"Ultra](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/724264.jpeg\"\/)
Ultra orthoodx jewish men block a road and clash with police during a protest against the jailing of yeshiva students who failed to comply with an army recruitment order, in Jerusalem, June 1, 2026. (credit: YONATAN SINDEL\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n
Diaspora Jews have long treated Israel\u2019s religion-state tensions as a background grievance \u2013 serious, but somehow always deferred.\u00a0<\/p>\n