Well written Yair - you hit the nail on the head.

What does it mean? how can you be Jewish and be secular at the same time . How can you be Jewish and not believe in God. Why all the politicians like Peres, Netanyahu wear a kipah when they visit a religious place or a religious ceremony why those hypocrite buffoons are masquerading around when they hate anything religious or Jewish. I hope someone has an answer.

There is actually at least one country in which the government funds private schools, namely Sweden. Although when the reform was made they renamed those schools to independent school. This means that they are govenrment funded and have to keep to the ministerial guidlines but can use different methods and modify the curicuum.These schools are not only ones with a different educational system but also religious schools such as jewish or muslim schools.

I 100% agree with your article, the left created Israel, and the religious wil destroy it, it happened already in our history, the more religious israel get, the weaker it become

Great article. 400% agree. Partnership implies also to talk to each other. If there is no secular-haredi dialog, it will be the war. And Jewish wars are always fatal for all of us.

Yair, I fully & absolutely concur. Very well articulated. It is high time the haredim start picking up some of the burden.

Well thought out and well presented argument. The truth always hurts, but the facts cannot be denied. The problem of course is that the Haridim just don't care - if they live in Israel or in the Gola they expect others to support them, so to them it matters not to them if Israel survives or not.

Israel was created by seculars, and it's going to be destroyed by the religious.

No my dear , in the golah they have to support themselve . I worked with Charidim , they had no choice . They were not paid there to study at a Yeshiva . Only if they had a rich family , or married a rich woman , could they study the whole day .

Yes , you can be Jewish and secular . It are mostly those seculars who build this country . When visiting a religious place , everyone obeys the rules . Certainly a State president or a Prime minister , it's not hypocrisy , it's respecting others . And i , a secular Oleh from a western Europe country , don't add USA or Egypt after my name , not even my birth country . I'm Israeli , nothing else .

That's right the convert was booted out of the car at the base of the hill to the glee of everyone in the car. Yair would you stop going to a popular bar till they discriminated away a convert so you could return?

But there they have to "keep the ministerial guidelines", you wrote . Where i lived , the state also funded Jewish [ and other ] schools . Only for the "official" part . We had to pay for the 8 hours Jewish lessons our children received every week . Here the State pays , but can't control . A big difference !

These black-hats are isolated from the main stream of Amer.Jews.And as long as Israel lets the black-hats in Israel lead the politics of Israel around by the nose.Israel's support in the US Jewish community will become less and less.Just look at the fact that the majority of Amer. Jews still support Pres.Oboma.

Economic indicators between January and March indicate 9% increase in industrial production index, 10.8% increase in commercial income. Export of goods rises by 26.1% following 38.3% increase in three previous months ... and more http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3882737,00.html I'm not Haredi and not defending them, but it's weird coming from the above article to this one.

Two of my four sons are Black Hats and two are not. They all work. The two who are Black Hats live in Israel, raise children and they work. Those who do not work, as far as I see it, are leeches on the community. I do not remember anything in the Torah that says you must study Torah 24 hours a day. The Talmud doesn't even say that. Education of children is a separate situation. After 18 the government should not give free education to anyone. You pay for what you get.

SEPERATE RELIGION & STATE NOW!!!!!!! Maybe then Israel can finally join the 21st century ....after 10 years......

There is big money in the galus to keep the haradem and very poor others well stocked and they must give. Israel may need these kids in a forced battle of pikuach nefesh no matter what the ideological clashes of the past.

I live in the US but often speak of sending my kids to yeshiva in Israel. My wife and other Israeli friends constantly advise me that this is a poor choice of action. I have been told many times how the yeshivot there provide only a frum education and no essential life skills one would need to aquire a skilled occupation or build a career. However the Yeshivas here in the US do, and so my wife always insists they would be better off here. I don't know why Israel can't or won't produce yeshivot that teach math, chemistry, physics, english, and computers the way ones here in the US do. This I think would go a long way toward solving the problem of their high unemployment.

when it come to technology and France is soon to have Sharia meaning that it's returning to the Stone Age. France will be Islamic in less than 20 years and maybe you should put your attention on that.

" I do not remember anything in the Torah that says you must study Torah 24 hours a day." - Check the opinion of Rebbe Shimon bar Yohchai in Shabbos 33a. Then follow up with the Rambam, Hilchos Shmittah, then follow up with the Mishnah Brurah and Rav Moshe Feinstein. You'll find that those who truly desire to are allowed, even with public support. But... most self-educated (read:non-educated) Jews don't seem to know these halachos.

TO NELSON You are absolutely right. I'm not religious, however, I read a lot of literature by I.B. Singer, and many others. In all the stories about orthodox Jews in the U.S. and Eastern Europe, the men always studied, but were also tradespeople, who earned a living and supported their families. They were shoemakers, milkmen, tailors, and what have you. I don't know how the idea got started of sitting all day and night and studying while the taxpayers support your families.

Lapid obviously hates the religious sector. Firstly most of what he said is disconnected from reality while the rest is just puffed up nonsense. Seculars have nothing to talk about with haredi kids? what do your kids talk about amongst themselves? math and science? movie stars? video games? If you taught your kids about Judaism instead of forcing them to be goyim we could do something as a unified nation. Haredi schools are 100% funded by the government? nonsense. these schools are subsidized heavily by private funds and the entire system of charedi schools was started independently of the government. How much do you think you are actually supporting the charedim? You will not be here soon in any case with your 2.5 kids and 1.5 dogs you will soon be outnumbered by the arabs you love and support who in turn hate you and will kill you the first chance he gets. Bottom line is if we dont agree on basic manners and values for our country there is no future. Its not about accusing the other one its about having a central ideology that we all live under. One people One nation One land

but your children ("black hats" included) were educated in the United States. They learned, as the author notes, the basics to be employable/earn an income/contribute economically to society without being dependent on welfare.

to begin with, much to my own chagrin, aramaic in fact has much religious significance. had you studied more gemara you would know this, for there it is stated in black and white. i'm not heredi but i have just as many children as they do, and i really can't agree with you at all on this issue. many of the haredim children will dissociate form the haredi world over the generations. besides, the 2.6 number you quote is much higher a number than you should have quoted, because it includes many groups of people, including myself, who are not haredi but are supportive of them and have many children. your segment probably has about 0.4 children per family. if it was left up to you and your friends, this country would have ceased to be long ago, overridden by our enemies as you partied oblivious in your goyisha clubs in tel aviv. i'm sick of the taxes in israel, as i make a lot of money and pay tons of taxes, and my wife is one of those teachers you mention who makes almost nothing for doing a full time job. i never considered it a problem related to the haredim. how about all those people making 30k nis or more working for government-controlled organizations? like port works, etc. if they made more down-to-earth salaries, then the remaining profit could be used for teachers. or how about the total waste of money that is paid to these disgusting news outlets in israel? the media is funded terribly by taxes, and they do nothing but represent a minority of "new-age" (let's all pretend we were never jewish) israelis. or how about all the money wasted on police used to kick jews out of their homes? or to protect unpopular governments and keep them in power when they should have disappeared long ago? i could go on, but there's really no need. every time i hear this haredi rant from you, or many other people i've heard it from, all is hear is hate and/or blaming others for ones own faults that you yourself should be correcting.

If we separate state and religion we get just what the pals want, and non-Jewish Israel. I dont think that was the reason Israel was started even if you think it was started by non-religious, which in itself is not true. Many very religious came here in the build up to the creation of the state. They too worked the land to create a viable state. It's time the seculars remember they are G-d like, not G-d. the state of Israel did not happen because of them, and does not exist today because of them. They may have helped but they did not do this alone.

B"H Mistaking effect for cause is a huge error. Blame your very own secular, so called "democratic" corruption Yair, not the Haredim in particular or the religious in general that use it. This is one. Two, how do you measure the cost of this same secular “democratic” corruption, projected to other political forces, like the Labor party, for example? The cost of Barak being DM despite the fact that he lost the elections? How much does that cost to the collectivity? Rather than a religious guy, why don’t you sit a labor minister into your passenger seat and his government programs to the back? Most importantly, three, since when self-proclaimed "democrats" like yourself address a fascia (segment) of society, rather than opinion groups (parties)? Attention, others did this in darker places and in darker ages, Yair! Do you have stats of how much Haredi owned businesses pay in taxes? I bet you don't. Have you looked at job adverts lately? Code-worded because illegal, like "at least one week-end per month”, for seculars only? If you don't want religious Jews sitting in your “car”, than give them the car they want, to drive it the way they want to drive. Judea and Samaria. They will drive it up the hill, G-d willing. The fact that your car is out of gas does not mean that the Torah people are out of it too. Quite the opposite, actually.

We know most of them are work shy , just like a lot of seculars who just want to piss off to India and thailand and get stoned.Nobody here really wants to get their hands too dirty ,that is why we have arab slave labor and thai workers for when arabs are too dangerous to employ .

Would you prefer them to all enroll in say, the Mamad system? Would that solve your financial straights? Or would you prefer they have no education at all? What is the net of our taxes that go to trash institutions like TAU and others that spawn sick treasonous "professors" ? Perhaps there would be more interest in teaching if the target student was not some denatured moral basket case that doesn't know who he is or why he is here?

at the primatives. True we cannot continue to support this and I say this being a Heredi man but to make it sound as though what you have is so superior to what we have, WELL MY DEAR YAIR, WAKE UP IT AINT SO! Look at it as a partnership not as inferior-superior.You will get alot furthur with your message.