What do Israel's Ultra-Orthodox Jews believe the government should do?

Answer 1

Israel's Ultra-Orthodox community wanted the Israeli government to subsidize their Torah study, provide them unlimited welfare for their families, refuse to negotiate with the Palestinians (especially concerning a divided Jerusalem), and to promote halakhic laws in the Israeli State.

• Answer 2

The above answer is misinformed. The Israeli leftist-backed media are well-known for their position of hatred of the religious communities, and people who get their opinions of religious Jews from these outside sources are likely to be mistaken.

a) The ultra-Orthodox do not expect any greater percentage of funding than the non-religious community gets. Universities and secular culture are funded to the tune of billions of shekels yearly, while the religious community would be happy with a much more modest amount.
b) No one asks for unlimited welfare, period.
c) While there are religious groups who do not agree with having Jewish-Arab negotiations, that by no means holds true for the majority. The ultra-Orthodox should not be confused with the modern-Orthodox.
To address the Question:
The ultra-Orthodox include a number of communities: Hassidim, religious Sephardim, the Litvish yeshivas, and more. It is misleading and improper to attempt to lump them together.

A few things that may be said are:
1) The ultra-Orthodox would like to see more compliance with the Torah in the public sphere, since Israel is nominally Jewish in that regard. They don't presume to dictate what people do in privacy, but they do believe for example that shopping malls should be closed on the Sabbath, as Israeli law already states. Those malls which flout the city ordinances and remain open on the Shabbat are creating unfair competition for the law-abiding small businesses.

2) Most ultra-Orthodox are fully in favor of coming to some kind of agreement with the Palestinians. They managed to live alongside the Arabs before the creation of the state of Israel and would be content to do so now too. The majority of ultra-Orthodox are not militaristic. The Agudah and Degel Hatorah (United Torah-Judaism) were and are in favor of coming to a negotiated peace arrangement.

3) Many Jewish immigrants were encouraged or pressured (especially in the 1950s) to leave their Orthodoxy. This still happens, through such avenues as the media, which are largely very anti-Torah. Obviously, we religious Israelis would like to see that change.

The official, gov't sponsored majority school system (mamlakhti) is secular. Rates of alcohol-use, drug use and violence (for example) are much higher than among religious school students. Here too, we would like to see change. However, the secular establishment is so "allergic" to Torah that they prefer to endure the ills of their society (teen suicides, teen abortions, etc.), rather than try encouraging stronger Judaism as a solution.

The government has sponsored such forbidden things as digging up graves, public Sabbath-violations, and tens of other examples.

Unlike in the U.S.A., when a politician here (except in the minority religious parties) invokes mention of God, it creates a political brouhaha, as if a contemptible thing has been committed.

The religious community is discriminated against in housing, allocations, school funding, etc.

These are just a very few examples.

Answer 2

The ultra-Orthodox include a number of communities: Hassidim, religious Sephardim, the Litvish yeshivas, and more. It is misleading and improper to attempt to lump them together. A few things that may be said are:
1) The ultra-Orthodox would like to see more compliance with the Torah in the public sphere, since Israel is nominally Jewish in that regard. They don't presume to dictate what people do in privacy, but they do believe for example that shopping malls should be closed on the Sabbath, as Israeli law already states. Those malls which flout the city ordinances and remain open on the Shabbat are creating unfair competition for the law-abiding small businesses.2) The official, gov't sponsored majority school system (mamlakhti) is secular. Rates of alcohol-use, drug use and violence (for example) are much higher than among religious school students. Here too, we would like to see change. However, the secular establishment is so "allergic" to Torah that they prefer to endure the ills of their society (teen suicides, teen abortions, etc.), rather than try encouraging stronger Judaism as a solution.
3) Most ultra-Orthodox are fully in favor of coming to some kind of agreement with the Palestinians. They managed to live alongside the Arabs before the creation of the state of Israel and would be content to do so now too. The majority of ultra-Orthodox are not militaristic.

See also the Related Link.

Orthodoxy and Zionism before the founding of modern Israel