We lost the battle in academia back in elementary school.

Originally published in First Source:
https://www.makorrishon.co.il/opinions/article/165401

The integration of the ultra-Orthodox into academia is not really successful, and that is no coincidence. A policy of solutions in agreement with the leaders of the sector can only work if both sides recognize the problem and want to solve it.

The findings of the recently published State Comptroller's report, which deals with the state's initiatives to complete education for the ultra-Orthodox and integrate them into academia, reveal a bleak and mostly frustrating picture. It turns out that billions of shekels are being invested in the integration project into academia and it is not yielding results. We are occasionally brought an article about a graduate of ultra-Orthodox education who managed to integrate into high-tech or academia, but these are anecdotes. The data tell us a completely different story. It should be remembered that the data mentioned there deals only with budgets that pass through the Education and Training Council. The real amounts – which are made up of many sources, government and private, that are invested in orientation programs, completing education, special scholarships, and the like – are much larger.

Not only do those investments not advance the education and integration of the Haredi, but in a typical way this money is mainly used to perpetuate the problem and deepen it. A large part of it is invested in failed attempts to integrate Haredim into fields that do have some added value (although almost no Haredim go to natural sciences and engineering, they can't afford it), but most of them drop out due to various constraints and a lack of suitability. Another part is invested in expanding useless "education" that would have been done anyway, such as teacher training for Haredi institutions. They don't need teachers in such quantities, and even if they did, these teachers would perpetuate the problem since it is rooted in those institutions themselves. In the end, good intentions to help the Haredim save themselves from themselves are thrown away and are mainly used by those who create the problem to deepen it even further.

Here is also the place to mention the ongoing efforts of the Haredi leadership to prevent the same funding from those leaving Haredi society. These young people went through Haredi education with all its obstacles and did not receive tools for life, chose to leave Haredi society and try to integrate into general society, and they are receiving nothing from all this abundant funding. Well, what do you expect – they would use it for the needs it was really intended for them, so why would they give them money?

There are many lessons that can be drawn from the report's findings. I will present the two main ones in my opinion. The first is that we lost the battle for academic success in elementary school. It is difficult, if not impossible, to bridge long-standing gaps through instant programs of several overlapping months. These programs include waiving academic requirements, creating low-barrel tracks, which are unclear as to how they receive academic approval (and of course do not meet the principle of equality, since higher criteria are required of other students, and they are not given similar subsidies), and the results speak for themselves. Even these easy tracks are not passed by many students, and all of our money is going down the drain.

The second lesson is that you shouldn't let the cat keep the fat. When you entrust the repair plans to the Haredi leadership and strive for solutions agreed upon by them, you fail. Their concern is to thwart all plans while using money for their own purposes, that is, to deepen the problem. Here we are not just letting the cat keep the fat, but actually creating it. We need to understand that the Haredi leadership did not suddenly encounter an unexpected problem that we must help it deal with. It created the problem. Therefore, letting it create and lead the solution is an outrageous policy. Einstein already said that insanity is trying something that has not worked over and over again and expecting a different result. Here the insanity is much greater. We are trying a solution that is clear in advance that it will not work and will even exacerbate the problem.

The main lesson is much broader. Consensus solutions are an excellent policy, but such a policy can only work if both sides recognize the problem and want to solve it. In such a case, it is certainly worthwhile to seek solutions and help those in distress get out of it. But when one of the parties is the problem itself, it is impossible, and wrong, to seek an agreed-upon solution. The Haredi leadership is not only the problem – it feeds on its very existence. Paying them to help them solve the problem is turning a blind eye. The leaders of the Haredi public were willing to pay you to perpetuate these gaps, since Harediism means isolation from the world and from society, and this requires perpetuating the distress and deepening the social and economic dependence of the Haredi on the street, in the establishment, and in the leadership. If the Haredi leadership feeds on the existence of the problem, then expecting it to be part of the solution is an ostrich's policy. This is true for the question of conscription, and it is also true for the question of integration into the economy and society. Good people strive for an agreed-upon solution, but they don't understand that this is not the kind of problem where such a policy can be applied.

We are perpetuating the problem with our own hands, and the large sums of money being transferred to solve it are part of this. The right way in such cases is to take tough steps, and especially to prevent funding from all the creative channels through which the Haredim draw funding from society. We must stop funding Haredi education, its institutions, its public enterprises, and Haredi society in general. Such a policy could force the Haredim on the street to rise up against their own leadership, which is strangling them with an iron fist, and thus save themselves from themselves. Although usually no prisoner lets himself out of prison, when he himself built the prison, only he can save himself from it. Other rescue attempts will sink him deeper into his own mud.