By all legitimate means, the government -- any government --
should catch anyone who cheats it. We make no defense of
those who lie or misrepresent the truth in any way in order
to collect money to which they are not entitled. The
government should catch whoever breaks the law and take
appropriate punitive action. We say this clearly so that
there will be no mistake.
However, in Israel there is a big myth that is, for various
reasons, widely held: that there is widespread fraud of
government in the religious public, and that it is even more
widely condoned. Government bureaucrats seem to spend all
their limited imaginative energy on devising new ways to
expose the legions of chareidi "cheaters" -- who exist only
in their imaginations.
Time and again, after new procedures are introduced that will
"certainly" expose all the chareidi tricks, the results are
no different from those found in the past. The level of fraud
in the chareidi public -- while it is still farther from zero
than we would like -- is invariably no higher than the level
anywhere else and generally lower.
This is a pattern that has repeated itself many times over
the years, for example with regard to the number of actual
students studying in chareidi schools, with regard to the
Israeli students in yeshivas, with regard to army deferments,
with regard to foreign students in yeshivas, with regard to
the numbers of chareidim voting in elections, and with regard
to just about any other contact the chareidim have with the
government authorities.
During several elections, for example, the far Leftist
parties made a special effort to send observers to every poll
in chareidi neighborhoods. All parties have the right to send
an observer to any poll, but generally parties send only to
polls in areas that they have many voters to ensure that they
get every vote that is coming to them. However the Left was
"sure" that there was widespread chareidi fraud which the
regular election security system was not detecting. It is far
from needless to say that even their ideologically motivated
observers detected nothing out of the ordinary.
No other sector of Jewish society is approached by the
Israeli government with a presumption of guilt. The Western
sensibility is likely to find it incredible, but it actually
appears that some of the steps are not taken only with a
reasonable -- if unnecessary -- goal of exposing fraud, but
also, or in some cases mainly, seem to be intended to insult
and embarrass chareidim without any apparent effect in
exposing wrongdoing.
This seems to be what is behind the recent warning issued by
the Ministry of Education that from now on all students at
chareidi institutions must carry identifying documentation
and if one of the surprise inspections turns up a
talmid without any such document, he will be marked
absent and the institution can expect to lose its funding for
him. Such inspections are basically unique to chareidi
institutions, and now they will be conducted under threats
and conditions that are specially designed for -- or against -
- chareidim.
The spirit of hatred of religion permeates the actions of the
current government. This is an example of the spirit, but
there is no lack of painful action. Actively advanced by
Shinui, which is only trying to live up to its campaign
promises, it is certainly not going to be opposed by the
Likud which at best does not care about those matters. No
other parties raise any objection to most of the anti-
religious deeds, and none seems to have any spiritual
resources that it can use to oppose the hatred of Shinui.
If we needed any reminders that we are still in golus,
we have them.
