Ostensibly, there is no connection between the two surprising government figures issued this past month. One points to a 20% decline in the number of ultra-Orthodox men enlisting in the army in 2018, compared with 2017, although the natural growth rate of the country’s ultra-Orthodox population averages 4% annually. The second piece of data indicates that residents of Israel’s five most populous ultra-Orthodox communities with the country’s highest poverty rates — Bnei Brak, Beit Shemesh, Beitar Ilit, Modi’in Ilit and Jerusalem — enjoy a longer life expectancy than could be expected given their socio-economic standing.

Researchers at the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies attribute the good health and long life expectancy of the ultra-Orthodox communities to the social cohesion of this population group, which constitutes 11% of the population. This cohesion is distinctly obvious in the impressive support for the rabbis’ ban on military enlistment of ultra-Orthodox men and their refusal to expose their young to modern society by teaching them such subjects as math, science and English. In April, Haaretz columnist Rogel Alper described the ultra-Orthodox as “primitive." Responding to the article, ultra-Orthodox pundit Yisrael Cohen wrote, “More than a million Israeli citizens are completely certain that anyone living in Israel and denying the millennia-old tradition of our fathers, anyone who despises and undermines Jewish values, they are the primitive and ignorant.”

Cohen, whose views reflect those of mainstream ultra-Orthodox leadership, continued, “Throughout their years in exile, the Jews were considered smart and educated, not necessarily because of their general studies but because of their dedication to Torah study combined with fervent religious belief and a life filled with significance.” Nonetheless, in an interview with Al-Monitor, Cohen pointed to an ongoing shift in the community, but said there was a gap between reality and the expectations of economists and military authorities. “The change is occurring at a far slower pace, but it is taking place in family and community attitudes toward those who go out to work and even those who enlist [rather than those dedicating their lives to holy studies]," he said.

According to Cohen, the state should invest more in helping young ultra-Orthodox men catch up with the math, science and English studies they missed in their schools, direct them to academic studies and send them as fast as possible into the labor market. He recommends doing so in “certain” cooperation with the religious leadership, or at least softening its objections to this trend. Cohen rejects the argument that the ultra-Orthodox leadership objects to general studies because ignorant voters tend to be more obedient. “Even more liberal communities — such as the Chabad or modern Lithuanian-Hassidic communities — obey their rabbis,” he noted. Cohen argued that the objection to teaching “secular” studies in ultra-Orthodox schools stems from concern about government intervention in the communities’ curriculum and possible contamination by views of nonbelievers.