What if the next government decided to dismantle secular autonomy?

Imagine the following scenario.

A new Israeli government takes office with an overwhelming religious majority. The new education minister holds a press conference and announces that Israel can no longer afford to ignore the national cost of secular educational autonomy.

He presents a series of troubling statistics.

The fertility rate among secular Jewish Israeli women stands at approximately 1.85 children per woman, below the demographic replacement level. A small nation surrounded by enemies cannot survive over time – neither militarily nor economically – with a shrinking population base.

He then connects demographic vulnerabilities to issues of national security.

First, military service: IDF figures show that roughly 60% of male graduates from religious state education serve in combat roles, compared to about 42% from the secular system. Should the state not ensure that all public educational tracks instill a comparable sense of national responsibility?

Second, pioneering values: Religious-Zionist education heavily emphasizes collective duty, settlement, and national service, whereas secular state education prioritizes individual achievement and economic success.

Beyond these security challenges, the minister addresses the core challenge of the state’s Jewish identity.

A nation cannot sustain itself solely through military strength and high-tech prosperity; it requires a deep historical consciousness, without which the ideological foundations of the Jewish state gradually decay. An educational system that is insufficiently connected to Jewish identity yields severe long-term consequences: inside Israel, it directly contributes to high rates of citizens considering leaving the country, while in the Diaspora, a weakened Jewish identity drives exceptionally high rates of assimilation and intermarriage.

The minister then challenges secular education’s claim to foster genuine freedom of choice. A student may graduate after 12 years with advanced mathematics and English, yet lack the skills to study a page of Talmud or engage with Jewish law. How can a child freely choose a religious life if it is kept beyond their reach?

Insisting he has no intention of forcing religious observance, the minister unveils a comprehensive structural reform. Full public funding will now be conditional upon adopting a curriculum based on religious-Zionist principles – integrating Torah study, combat service, and settlement values. Schools wishing to preserve their secular character may do so, but without state funding.

“If data proves one educational model better serves our national resilience,” he argues, “the government has a responsibility to promote it. After all, this is why governments are elected.”

How would secular Israelis respond?

They would rightly view this policy as state-sponsored identity engineering. They would argue that freedom of choice includes the right to educate their children according to a secular worldview, and that the state has no authority to declare their lifestyle deficient. They would point to the immense contributions of secular graduates to Israel’s security, economy, and science, asking one fundamental question:

*Who gave the state the authority to decide which Jewish way of life is correct?*

*Now replace the word “secular” with “Haredi.”*

This thought experiment directly touches contemporary Israeli policy debates. Proposals to reduce Haredi institutional autonomy – such as policy papers by the Israel Democracy Institute calling to “reduce separatist Haredi autonomy” or dismantle its “economic-political hegemony” – have gained widespread support.

These proposals raise a fundamental question about the limits of state authority when intervening in a community with a distinct worldview.

Haredi society faces real challenges regarding employment, education, and civic responsibility. The state is entitled to establish reasonable conditions for public funding.

*Yet a crucial distinction must be drawn: promoting economic integration and professional skills are legitimate governance goals, but they neither require nor justify cultural engineering. Economic advancement should be achieved by expanding educational pathways and creating professional opportunities, not by attempting to reshape a community’s values or dismantle its institutions.*

Does the existence of an educational system that raises children according to a specific tradition constitute a violation of their freedom? An individual who voluntarily accepts rabbinic authority has not surrendered their freedom, just as a secular Jew who lives outside religious frameworks has not abandoned their Jewish identity.

The core question is whether a government is entitled to leverage public funding to declare one community’s educational model superior and use state power to replace another. If intervention in Haredi education is justified for economic strength and security, could similar intervention in secular education be justified for demographic and cultural resilience?

Israel has a vital interest in ensuring every child acquires tools to earn a living, participate in society, and understand Jewish heritage. But these goals do not require weakening communal identity. It is possible to expand core capabilities without treating Torah study as an obstacle, just as it is possible to strengthen Jewish identity in secular schools without turning secular students into religious Jews.

A liberal society is not measured solely by its willingness to defend the way of life it prefers. *It is measured by its willingness to defend a way of life it does not understand, and may even strongly oppose.*

The question is not whether Haredi society faces challenges – of course it does, and they must be addressed with seriousness and responsibility. The question is whether those seeking to grant the state authority to restructure Haredi institutions would grant a religious government that same authority over secular ones.

If the answer is no, we must ask ourselves whether our guiding principle is truly individual liberty, or merely the freedom we extend to ways of life we happen to approve of.