There appear to be no limits on what the protesters would do to damage their country and their fellow citizens to prevail
ASthe founder and director of the Haredi Institute for Public Affairs, Mishpacha publisher Eli Paley has undertaken to heal many of the tears in Israeli society. In that context, he has probably spent as much time in meetings and private conversations with those in Israel’s opposition movement as any chareidi Jew in Israel.
He recently shared with me that a constant refrain in those meetings has been that the children of the opposition leaders see no place for themselves in Israel and do not intend to remain. Often the blame is placed at the feet of the chareidim, whose growing numbers, they say, threaten to make Israel unlivable for their offspring.
Finally, at one such meeting, Eli responded that he fully expects all his children and grandchildren to live in Israel. And perhaps rather than blaming the chareidim for their own children’s decisions, they should ask themselves why the situation is so diametrically opposite for chareidi parents.
I myself had a similar conversation a few months back with a longtime friend, who has become one of the prime voices of the opposition movement in English. He told me that his daughter and the mother of his first grandchild, currently living far from Israel, had told him, “What is there for me in Israel?”
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