When the Haredim Cry “Anti-Semitism” and Discover They Have Lost Public Sympathy

When there is no public sympathy, arguments from the era of the Cossacks are pulled out: the Haredi leadership has found a convenient rhetorical weapon, branding the attorney general and senior figures in the justice system as “anti-Semites.” Faced with polls showing a wall of alienation and anger, Haredi politicians are mobilizing the language of exile and turning the cuts to daycare subsidies into “decrees” and “persecution of Jews.” What do the polls say about the attitude of other sectors, and what are the accusations trying to hide: an analysis by “The Index,” by Shmuel Rosner, The Index, N12 Magazine. Published: 11.06.26, 20:04

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara is in very poor shape. The Haredi leadership is in even worse shape. Why bring this up? Because political leaders in Haredi parties and in other parties, this week it was Minister David Amsalem of Likud, often attach the label “anti-Semites” to Baharav-Miara and to other senior figures in the legal and administrative establishment. So there is a kind of competition over image: Moshe Gafni wants you to think that the attorney general, or the deputy attorney general Gil Limon, or the justices of the Supreme Court, are anti-Semites, but for you to think that, you have to believe Gafni, or his colleagues, and therefore his image also has a role. Whoever thinks Gafni is a person whose claims are worth hearing will consider the possibility that Baharav-Miara is anti-Semitic. Whoever thinks Baharav-Miara is not anti-Semitic may conclude that Gafni is not a person whose words are worth hearing. In this competition, we said, Baharav-Miara is not in such a bad position, but Gafni, who we will use as a stand-in for the Haredi leadership, as we use her as a stand-in for the top of the government bureaucracy, is in a worse position.

She, the attorney general, enjoys high trust from part of the public and low trust from another part. Let’s say roughly half and half, depending of course on the exact wording of the question. A survey by the Israel Democracy Institute found that 42% of Israelis said the attorney general’s professional performance was poor, and 48% said it was good. Since not all respondents are legal experts, let’s assume that “professional performance” refers to a personal assessment. So perhaps some of those who say her performance is poor would go so far as to agree that she is anti-Semitic.

But when they consider that possibility, they will have to look to the other side, to the side shouting “anti-Semites.” Gafni, as a representative, is a public figure for whom almost no sympathizers remain, and almost none for his sector either. At the annual conference of the Jewish People Policy Institute, to be held next Sunday, data will be presented on the “closeness” of sectors to other sectors. They show that the Haredim are at the bottom of the scale of closeness in Israeli society. No sector, apart from themselves, feels very close to them. At the same time, as a survey we conducted a few weeks ago shows, a large majority of the non-Haredi Jewish public expresses anger toward the Haredi sector. In other words, there is alienation, and there is anger.

The claim of “anti-Semitism” is directed by Haredi speakers and their supporters toward non-Haredi leaders, spokespeople, or publics, and it happens often. This week, Supreme Court Deputy President Noam Sohlberg narrowly escaped, since Minister Amsalem said of him that he is “more stupid than anti-Semitic.” This is a fascinating claim that mainly says something about the consciousness of the Haredim themselves, and also of those who support them: in their minds, at least implicitly, they are still living in the Diaspora, among the gentiles, in a place where every claim, or sanction, or criticism, is tainted by suspicion of hatred of Jews. The hostile official is the Polish Catholic who received an anti-Jewish education. He is the German Lutheran, following the founder of the stream, Martin Luther, who was also anti-Semitic. He is the Ukrainian, a descendant of the Cossacks. He is the Spaniard, a descendant of the Kingdom of Aragon, which expelled the Jews. All of these are anti-Semites, and apparently so are the officials of the heirs of the Zionist movement, who struck the old Jewish world and came to redeem the land, those who want to “starve” Haredi children, as several MKs claimed.

In January of this year, when two babies died at a daycare center in Jerusalem, Haredi leaders spoke in Hebrew, in Israel, as their great-grandfathers would have spoken about foreign leaderships, in foreign countries. “The voice of the blood of the infants of the nursery, children who have not tasted the taste of sin, cries from the ground. We all must stop the persecution.” That is a quote from former minister Moshe Arbel of Shas. “The severe decrees ... [created] severe overcrowding in the daycare centers,” said a statement from United Torah Judaism. “A very large population is being pushed at once into distress,” Aryeh Deri argued. The images come from another world, another reality. “Overcrowding,” “crammed,” “infants of the nursery,” “the children of yeshiva students expelled,” “their blood was abandoned,” “children who have not tasted the taste of sin.” It is not always easy to know whether Haredi leaders truly feel this way, or whether they have simply trained themselves to use this language, in the hope that the Haredi community in Israel will be seen by other Israelis as a community of Jews persecuted in Europe in previous centuries.

Do they succeed? Let us consider two findings. After the deaths of the infants at a Haredi daycare center, which, as noted, the Haredim tried to link to budget cuts in daycare subsidies for those who do not report for military service, a large majority of the public, 70%, did not agree that “the blame for the death of the toddlers lies with the attorney general because of her decision to freeze daycare subsidies.” The Haredim agreed with it, 74%. But the religious public did not, 67%. The traditional and secular public even less so. In general, a majority of the Jewish public today supports sanctions against Haredim who do not enlist, including canceling daycare subsidies, in a recent survey we conducted, 76% said yes to canceling the subsidy. A majority of the religious public also supports such a step, 53%. Cutting daycare subsidies apparently is not seen, for now, as an act of anti-Semitism.

Could it become one? Here is a second finding: almost half of Jews in Israel believe there is “discrimination” against Haredim in the country. Here, this is indeed a claim that again echoes the past, in the Diaspora, when there was, well, discrimination against Jews. Two-thirds of Likud voters believe there is discrimination against Haredim. So do a majority of Religious Zionism supporters. That is, of course, the audience to which the cry of anti-Semitism is addressed. And why might it be effective? Because if we place it in a broader basket of claims, it somehow joins a strong feeling, fueled in the religious-right wing of Israeli society, that there is someone or something, an establishment, an ethnicity, a group, an elite, that discriminates against its members.

Consider the following data. 62% of those who identify as supporters of the “right” believe there is discrimination against Mizrahim in Israel. But among those who identify as supporters of the “center,” that figure drops to 17%. 54% of religious Israelis believe there is discrimination against Mizrahim in Israel. Among secular Israelis, the figure drops to 28%.

The language of discrimination, the language of hostility, is widely spoken in the camp supporting the coalition. Without entering the question of whether there is in fact discrimination or not, which is not always an easy question to answer, this is language that has persuasive power in that camp. The Haredim, in their cry of anti-Semitism, seek to ride on a situation that is easy to identify, a situation in which a camp that, both in the previous election and in quite a few before it, managed to consolidate itself as a majority, is a camp that speaks the language of the minority. The cry of anti-Semitism is the cry of the minority, drawing on thousands of years of Jewish history as a minority. The Haredim actually want us to get confused. To forget, for a moment, that we are the majority. To forget, for a moment, that we came here, and established a state, so that we would no longer need the language of the minority. If we only forget, they will benefit.