Dear Haredim

Dear Haredim,

It’s true I was annoyed at having to take the long way around – taking us twice as long as necessary – to attend a family event Thursday evening. In case you were at all concerned for our welfare, I can tell you we weren’t the last to arrive. One or two did not make it at all, admitting defeat and turning back at an off ramp.

It’s true I have supported others who blocked roads, so I can hardly fault you for doing the same, even when I disagree with your cause. Regularly blocked roads are simply another symptom of our dysfunctional present. And even though the police are standing farther back when it comes to your protest, as opposed to ours, I find myself shrugging my shoulders. I am not a lover of arrests and police violence.

In fact, I have some wildly mixed feelings when it comes to army service: I believe the way out of our face-off could be a radical rethinking of the idea of compulsory conscription and upholding the tattered myth of the “people’s army.”

So, what is my issue with you? Whenever I see you on TV, explaining your convoluted rationale for bringing the center of the country to a standstill, for young men telling us they are willing to die rather to carry out their civic duty, Israel is referred to as “your country,” pointing at the interviewer. As in my country, not yours.

You are, of course, a citizen of the same country as me; you carry the same ID card. That is why your young people are subject to the draft, in the first place. Your children’s childcare and schooling are paid for by our common taxes; your health care subsidized; your cities planted with greenery and roads paved. Your elected parties hold extortionate sway in the government, to the detriment of secular people like me.

You cannot choose to be a part of the country when it supports your family, but refuse to be one when something is asked in return. Honestly, I don’t care whether you believe in a higher law, above our civil organization or not. You are a citizen. Period. The laws apply to you and to us “apikoirosim” equally.

If you want to renounce your citizenship, I will fully support you. I would even support a law that would divert the funds we are about to pay for childcare and for jobs for kosher certification into one-way plane tickets to any country that will have you.

But as long as we are all citizens of this country, we all – religious, secular, Arab, Jewish, Christian, etc. – must have equal rights and responsibilities.

We both, you and I, live in bubbles with people who share our beliefs, for the most part. I do not have a rabbi to tell me his interpretation of g-d’s will, but I will admit that these days, my immediate community is the only place where I feel truly safe discussing things like politics. Even this blog feels a bit risky, at times.

The difference, however, is that I accept Israel, for better or worse, as my country. My battles are against the ruling parties, against a war that should have ended years ago, against inequality and erasure of rights. They are all battles to restore democracy, to change the country from within, to make it a place where all of us can live. Your battles are against the country, itself. And if the visuals are to be believed, you have your own shock troops, ready to be called out as soon as a handful of guys are arrested for draft dodging.

In that case, we need peace negotiations ala Trump and Witkoff. We need to ask them to come up with a 12-point plan that reopens the streets in exchange for loosening the cash flow, and leave “explosive” issues like army service for later discussion.

We can go into detail about my rights as a secular Jew. Whether or not I can travel on Saturday, eat non-kosher food, dress as I like, sit next to men in public. We can go into your rights as a Haredi who demonstrates in the street at the behest of a rabbi and who apparently believes Torah study is not a part of life, but all of it. We can leave some holes open for different communities to develop and thrive in their own ways.

But first, this country, this democratic, Jewish state, must be your country as well. I do not accept the idea that ultraorthodox parties are allowed to hold our prime minister by his private parts, but can educate their members to consider themselves removed from the actual state. Check yourself: Do you have a vote? If so, you are a citizen. Of Israel.

Please, my Haredi friend, act like one.

Yours,

Judy