Solving a problem begins by calling it by its proper name

It's difficult these days to talk about anything associated with the 'ultra-religious' (i.e. Hareidi') sector of Israeli society without being drawn into an unhealthy mix of side-issues that, if extant in any other sector of the population, would not be seen as being in any way relevant.

For example, open a discussion of the terms of service by ultra-orthodox Jews in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and you will not only find yourself being given contradictory information that ultra-orthodox don't serve in the IDF, and that they are taking over the IDF... but you will also likely be dragged into a discussion of the illegal behavior or the ultra-orthodox civilians(!) towards their less Hareidi neighbors in Beit Shemesh, and their attempts to segregate Israeli buses along gender lines.

The problem in allowing the mixing of all these issues/stories into a single discussion isn't that they aren't true (at least in part), but rather that they attempt to discuss all religious people when each of the sub-discussions being tossed in may only apply to a specific (and often tiny, non-representative) portion of the religious/Hareidi population.

This is akin to trying to hold an intelligent discussion about affirmative action in the US while allowing the introduction of side issues such as welfare statistics, crime rates, the prevalence of single parenthood within the black community, and even unsubstantiated personal anecdotes by participants in the discussion about negative interactions they've had with blacks. 

In short, not only does a productive discussion of affirmative action become impossible under such circumstances, but the discussion can't help but be hijacked by those whose intention it is to portray African Americans in as unsympathetic a light as possible… specifically so as to make them seem undeserving of any sort of systemic preferential treatment (such as affirmative action).

I use the example of affirmative action advisedly.  According to a commonly accepted definition, affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination. [emphasis mine] [source]

I don't think anyone will argue that new policies and laws being introduced in the IDF and Israeli society as a whole, are intended to benefit Hareidim because historically they have been underrepresented.  The main difference here is that the underrepresentation of Hareidim in the IDF, and the Israeli workforce, has largely been a matter of their own choice rather than the workforce and the IDF overtly excluding them.

But even that isn't entirely correct.  And to illustrate this I need to borrow yet another example from the US.

I served in the U.S. Navy at a time when women were just beginning to be allowed to serve on combat ships, and in roles/areas that had been entirely male bastions.   

I recall that suddenly there was a lot of discussion of topics that had never been raised onboard American Navy ships such as 'appropriate behavior', 'sexual harassment', 'creating a hostile environment', etc..  

Also, inspections were being held on a regular basis to ensure that Playboy centerfolds and other potentially offensive images were no longer taped up in workspaces, and workshops were held to role play what kind of jokes and slang was acceptable in a mixed-gender environment, and what was considered appropriate behavior between superiors and subordinates of different gender.

Things that had formerly been considered part and parcel of 'team building' and 'unit cohesion' such as initiations, hazing and good natured reinforcement of the military hierarchy known as the 'Chain of Command' had to be reexamined to see how they would be perceived by women. 

Needless to say, whether or not you were in favor of the gender integration of Navy ships, you had to admit that the practical aspects of integration required a significant upheaval of the prevailing culture if the new system was going to work.

It has taken awhile, but a combination of economic and cultural pressures on the Israeli Hareidi community has begun to make them reassess the workability of their isolationist policies.  

First of all, the Israeli government's slow winnowing of benefits to larger families (a policy begin by current Prime Minister Natenyahu when he was Ariel Sharon's Finance Minister), by itself has had little effect on the Hareidi population's willingness to make internal changes.  

But add to those polices the global financial down-turn which has shattered the model by which a significant portion of the Hareidi population subsisted, at least in part, on largess from more affluent Hareidi communities and organizations abroad… and suddenly you have a community that is extremely motivated to find new ways to support itself.

So for a number of reasons, the proportion of Hareidim in Israel who want to join the workforce has taken a noticeable jump.  The problem is that translating the desire to work into actually going to work requires a clearing a legal hurdle:  According to Israeli law, you can't legally get a job without having done military, or some other approved national service.  

One could argue that this law isn't applied uniformly / equitably across the board to Israel's Arab population (or even to some segments of Israel's secular draft dodgers), but that's a discussion for another day.  I won't fall victim to the same sort of topic blending that I complained about above.

For whatever reason, the Hareidim have begun to be stirred from their isolationist slumber, and are starting, albeit slowly, to be show up in the IDF and the civilian workforce.  It is a trickle at present… but with the right encouragement, it could swell to a torrent.

I would argue that this is a good thing.  There is a lot of work yet to be done, and the numbers need to grow exponentially… but you can't complain that a segment of the population isn’t carrying its load… and yet continue to make them feel unwelcome when they show up to shoulder their share.

Like those U.S. Navy combat ships that saw the first female officers and sailors serving aboard them, the IDF has a period of adjustment ahead of it.  And media reports incorrectly portraying religious soldiers' unwillingness to listen to female voices in song as a desire to outlaw women singing in the IDF is not helpful (to say the least).

Retired Israeli judge Tzvi Tal said it far better than I ever could when he offered the following to an interviewer this past week on that topic:

"I think this matter of women's singing is strange. No one forbids women's singing. There is a group that thinks that for religious reasons, it must not listen to women's singing. So why force it upon them? Why do the 'champions' of freedom of expression and the 'champions' of minority rights want to force this [singing] upon a minority?" … "Who said that [female soldiers] must not sing? Let them sing until they are blue in the face." … "Let's say that another minority in the army says that it refuses to hear women's singing – the Druze or Circassians, for instance. Would anyone force it upon them? Does service in the IDF compel people to listen to singing? Service in the IDF demands self-sacrifice. And this, these [religious] soldiers are willing to give."  [source]

I couldn't agree more. 

For many religious (not just Hareidi) soldiers, hearing a woman sing is as overtly erotic as a Playboy pinup.  You can argue all you want that they need to toughen up and join the modern world.  But in doing so, you are also saying that those women who began serving on U.S. Navy back in the 80s should also have 'toughened up' and acclimated themselves to the testosterone-laden environment they were so keen to join.  

The difference is that, unlike the navy example I gave earlier… the IDF isn't saying that in order to make religious soldiers feel more comfortable female singing should be eliminated from all gatherings and ceremonies.  No, they are simply saying that anyone who might have trouble listening to it should not be forced to do so (and should be quietly excused).

Sadly, one wouldn't know that from the news coverage and public discussion of the subject.

In fact, this has been the defacto policy for decades in the IDF.  It only became a cause célèbre for the media when a secular commander in an elite IDF naval officer's course decided to break with the accepted status quo and ordered several religious cadets to remain in an organized event where women were singing.  The cadets followed their conscience instead of their commander's orders, and as a result, were dismissed from the course (most have subsequently been readmitted).  

I tried having this discussion with one of my coworkers, and was shocked to have him start talking to me about the ultra-religious who were attacking less religious school children in Beit Shemesh, and others who were trying to force women to sit at the back of public buses.  He even tossed all religious settlers under the proverbial bus due to the criminal actions of a few teenagers who had recently thrown rocks at an army officer.  

No amount of persuasion on my part that such actions were as illegal as they were non-representative of the larger populations to which the perpetrators belonged, had the slightest affect on the bile being spewed by this gentleman.  All he knew was that these problems were being caused by 'those religious fanatics', so he felt justified in attacking the entire group.

When I asked him how he would feel if I asked him to take personal responsibility for the leftists who had injured scores of soldiers and police officers over the last few years at daily protests over the route of the 'separation fence', he waved me away with a dismissing hand.  

I asked him if he felt that the criminal acts by Anat Kamm represented him?  I even asked if he wanted to be held responsible for the nearly daily acts of violence carried out in Tel Aviv and Natanya by rival crime gangs?   

After his initial dismissal, my questions fell on deaf ears.  He considered my questions ridiculous (which, of course they were)… but could not make the intellectual leap to see that his blanket accusations were equally silly.

In short, we all seem to see our own camp as a richly diverse heterogeneous mosaic, while we see those we dislike (or simply don't understand) as belonging to a monolithic, homogeneous block possessing the attributes and intentions of its most deviant and subversive members.

I've written this today, not because I have a suggestion on how to get the media to stop mixing unrelated subjects and inciting baseless suspicion and hatred between the religious and non-religious segments of Israeli society.  I have written it because sometimes the only way to begin to solve a problem is to identify it and begin calling it by its proper name; In this case, Bigotry.