Glimpses of Future Disaster

Demographic projections always have to be treated with a great deal of care, but this (from a piece in the National Interest) still makes disturbing reading:

A recent report compiled by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics makes some projections looking out nearly fifty years, to 2059. The report separates out for the first time in any such official public reckoning the growth of the ultra-Orthodox population, which has a significantly higher birth rate than other Israeli Jews. The ultra-Orthodox currently make up about ten percent of Israeli society but by 2059 are projected to constitute over thirty percent.

The disproportionate growth of the Haredim, as the ultra-Orthodox are also called, has severe implications for Israeli society and the Israeli economy. About 60 percent of ultra-Orthodox men do not work for a living. They spend their time in religious study at yeshivas while they and their fast-growing families subsist on government stipends. This already constitutes a major burden on the remainder of Israelis and is a contributor to the economic discomfort that stimulated widespread demonstrations earlier this year. If the projected increase in the ultra-Orthodox proportion of the population involves a proportionate increase in those not contributing to the economy, it is hard to see how the even larger burden on everyone else could be sustained. The ultra-Orthodox also are not subject to the same military service requirements as other Israeli Jews, constituting another area where the burden is all the greater on the others. Then there is the effect on social mores and freedoms. The growing influence of the ultra-Orthodox has already raised issues regarding the status and liberties of Israeli women. A further expansion of that influence will make Israel an ever more illiberal place.

Clearly these trends present Israel with a very serious challenge to its vitality and even to its survival as a society recognizable and acceptable to most of its current citizens. A major question is whether the privileges and influence of the Haredim can be curbed before they become so large a proportion of the population that curbing is no longer politically thinkable. There has been some official recognition of the danger, as reflected in efforts to get more of the ultra-Orthodox into the work force, including the performance by some of auxiliary duties in support of the military. But privileges that go so far and are so firmly entrenched will naturally be stoutly defended. When an ultra-Orthodox rabbi suggested last year that full-time, government-financed religious study should be reserved only for exceptionally promising scholars who are groomed to be rabbis or religious judges and that other ultra-Orthodox men should “go out and earn a living,” he was so vehemently denounced by his own political party, the ultra-Orthodox Shas, that he had to be assigned a bodyguard.

H/t: Andrew Sullivan

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4 Responses to Glimpses of Future Disaster

  1. Polichinello says:

    Of course, Sullivan will fret about some religious Jews in Israel, but if you dare object to similar demographic trends in this country and their political implications, he goes bonkers…well, more bonkers than normal.

  2. Narr says:

    This is all probably moot, IMHO. Demographic trends that can’t continue, won’t, and Israel will either be torn apart from the inside or obliterated from the outside long before 2059.

  3. Jeeves says:

    Sullivan will fret about some religious Jews in Israel, but if you dare object to similar demographic trends in this country and their political implications, he goes bonkers

    Sullivan’s is an adoptive admission at best, since it’s Paul Pillar that’s doing the fretting. Not that I pay attention to either of them. But, just to be clear, which demo trends are you referring to? The Unassimilated That Dare Not Be Identified? (Unless your name is, e.g., Steve Sailer.) Lower white fertility rate? Both? More?

  4. Polichinello says:

    There was a recent headline where a demographer told a bunch of cheering Hispanic pols in Texas “It’s all over for Anglos in Texas.” Sullivan, and other like him, would go into full meltdown if anyone of prominence pointed out this fact from the Anglo perspective, and noted the negative consequences.

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