No more splinters: Israel can no longer fund its own vilification by haredim - opinion

In fact, not long ago, I wrote about our complicated relationship with polarizing figures in public life, arguing that moral clarity and empathy need not be enemies. My son replied, half-jokingly but with sting: “If you sit on the fence long enough, you’ll get a splinter in your backside.”

I laughed at the time – but the phrase stayed with me. And then, two weeks ago, a mass demonstration in Jerusalem forced me off that comfortable fence and made neutrality not just impossible but immoral.

I have always believed that within the haredi world, there are individuals of deep moral conviction and spiritual integrity – scholars who dedicate their lives to Torah with humility and devotion. The Jewish people have always needed such guardians, just as we have needed soldiers and scientists.

Those who hold up such signs are not merely opposing a policy; they are rejecting the very legitimacy of the Jewish state. They are saying, in essence: “We enjoy the safety, the hospitals, the welfare, the protection – but we owe nothing in return.”

Israel’s secular and traditional citizens pay the taxes that fund haredi institutions. Their sons and daughters risk – and all too often give – their lives to protect every Israeli, including those who curse the soldiers guarding their neighborhoods. The same young men being branded “enemies” are the ones who stand between those protesters and annihilation by Iran, Hamas, or Hezbollah.

That is not a difference of ideology: It is a moral obscenity.

The State of Israel has bent over backwards for decades to accommodate the haredi community – granting deferments, budgets, and political concessions in the hope of preserving internal peace. It has been patient - too patient. And yet, instead of gratitude, it receives hatred; instead of dialogue, defiance; instead of partnership, open rebellion.

There must come a moment when the state says: enough.

If someone declares that Israel is their “enemy,” then perhaps it is time the state takes them at their word. Citizenship is not an entitlement divorced from responsibility. A society cannot survive if millions within it reject its legitimacy while draining its resources.

And let us be clear: this mindset does not come from a fringe. The mainstream rabbinic establishment has long ruled that army service is yehareg ve’al ya‘avor (Die rather than transgress).

If their leaders told them to eat peaches instead of pears, they would do so without hesitation. When a leadership that powerful instructs its followers to abrogate responsibility and to show disdain to those who do their dirty work for them, something has gone terribly wrong.

I’ve just finished drying my eyes after listening to three hours of eulogies at the funeral of Itay Chen, HYD.

I listened to his mother, his father, his brothers, his aunts, his uncle, the president of Israel, the German ambassador, Steve Witkoff, and others – all speaking about a nineteen-year-old who gave his life with unimaginable courage. We even heard the recording from inside the tank moments before they were all killed. It was harrowing beyond words.

This was the seventh soldier’s funeral I personally have attended since the war began.

So, with the greatest respect, I defy anyone to hold those two images in their heart – the raw, emotional dignity of a family around a freshly dug grave of a son whose body was held for 760 days, and the crowds chanting “I would rather die than serve” – and not feel anger, and yes, despair, that such moral blindness could exist within our people.

We can hope for renewal, and we must. But hope that refuses to name the sickness becomes sentimentality. Sometimes love of Klal Yisrael demands that we say, in plain words, that this is not holiness. It is a betrayal of everything Torah is meant to stand for.

Rabbi Soloveitchik wrote that the State of Israel is “the concretion of Jewish history, the physical vessel of our people’s covenant with God.” To spit on that is not piety; it is rebellion against our destiny.

I know some will say my words are harsh. Perhaps they are. But sometimes harshness is honesty.

I have spent much of my life defending the middle ground. I believe in bridge-building, in empathy, in finding the good even in those with whom I disagree. But there comes a time when sitting on the fence is not prudence – it is paralysis.

Maimonides’ Golden Path is a noble ideal for personal ethics. But it was never meant to excuse moral cowardice. The Rambam himself fought those who distorted religion for power and control. He did not compromise with them; he confronted them.

This week, after hearing the eulogies of Itay Chen and seeing those banners in Jerusalem, I realized something painful but clear: moderation must never become moral surrender.

If they see us as enemies, let them know that Israel will no longer fund its own vilification.

And if that means I’ve finally fallen off the fence – splinter and all – then so be it.