In recent months, harassment of shops selling and servicing cell phones in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods has increased, to the point of actual attacks by their owners and employees. This struggle against smartphones is, in fact, the gathering battle of the ultra-Orthodox establishment against the intrusion of smartphones and the Internet as a whole into ultra-Orthodox society.A, a battle in which they lose hugely. The horses ran away from the stable.
In 2020, when the Corona had to go beyond studying zooming in and shutting down homes, there was a real increase in the entry of the Internet into ultra-Orthodox homes. It was estimated that about half of the ultra-Orthodox households. The ultra-Orthodox society yearbook of the Israel Democracy Institute published today shows that the penetration is much deeper.
According to the yearbook, two-thirds of the ultra-Orthodox society is already deep within the Internet and the digital world compared to only 28% in 2008. The usage habits are different, and the attitude towards social networks is different, but this figure is huge, and frightens many in the old ultra-Orthodox establishment. This means that this public is exposed to much broader information than they were previously allowed to do, information that allows them to better understand the world around them, find new opportunities for employment and education and in general, consume news and communicate with the world outside the ultra-Orthodox walls.
The data from the yearbook show that the exposure of the ultra-Orthodox to the Internet reached almost two thirds (64%) in 2020, compared with only 28% in 2008, however, it is still low compared to non-ultra-Orthodox Jews (93%). The ultra-Orthodox also differ in the way they connect to the network, and tend to connect mainly via the home computer (42%), rather than via the mobile phone (30%). Even when they have access to the Internet by both means, most of them will prefer to connect from a computer (62%) – compared to non-Haredi Jews whose main use is via cell phone (72%).
More functional than social use
The way ultra-Orthodox use the Internet tends to be more functional than social. And what is their main use? In first place, e-mail (88%), followed by information retrieval (73%), digital banking (62%), for work purposes (58%) and receiving services from government ministries (56%). These rates of use are similar to those of non-Haredi Jews, but data search data are still lower than among non-Haredi Jews (94%), and only a little over a third (36%) pay bills and shop online, compared to more than half (53%) of non-Haredi Jews. -religious.
The use of the Internet for social purposes is less common among ultra-Orthodox users, but no less than half of the ultra-Orthodox who surf the Internet use social networks. Less than half (46%) use WhatsApp, and only 10% use the Internet for gaming purposes.
The proportion of children and youth (under the age of 18) who use the Internet is only 13% among ultra-Orthodox respondents – much lower compared to non-ultra-Orthodox Jews (75%). Haredi parents restrict their children’s access to the network more than non-Haredi Jewish parents (88% vs. 57% respectively), as well as the time of use (76% vs. 62% respectively).
One of the yearbook’s editors, Dr. Gilad Malach, tells Globes that the data show a division into three groups among the ultra-Orthodox: the conservative third, who remains in the non-digital bubble, a third who uses the Internet for functional purposes only, especially email, and a third who behaves like other citizens. Socialism and he reveals high digital skills.
According to Malach, the networks have become a major information tool for these users, who distribute it within the company, a kind of information agents from the outside world. A second and no less important point, he said, is the connection between the increase in the use of the Internet and the sharp increase in the number of ultra-Orthodox students in academia. In 2020/21, about 14,700 ultra-Orthodox students studied in higher education institutions, constituting 4.5% of all students in Israel. An increase of nearly 2,000 students (about 14%), compared to the year before. At the beginning of the decade, for comparison , Less than 4,000 ultra-Orthodox studied at the academy.Composition of students: 67.5% of ultra-Orthodox students are women, while about 12,100 of ultra-Orthodox students (82%) studied for a bachelor’s degree, and about 2,600 studied for graduate degrees, the vast majority for a master’s degree.
A large majority of ultra-Orthodox undergraduate students studied in 2019/20) in academic colleges (45%) and colleges of education (24%), and only a minority in the Open University (20%) and other universities (11%).
The number of ultra-Orthodox men and women studying in technological vocational training tracks has also increased, and by a much larger rate of 26%, and a total of almost 5,000 ultra-Orthodox men and women studied in these tracks by 2020. The popular track is software engineering where half are students, and the other architecture and interior design.
Stagnation in the rate of ultra-Orthodox men going out to work in the last five years
The bad news is stagnant in the proportion of ultra-Orthodox men going out to work in the last five years, only 50-52% of them. The rest are registered as yeshiva students. A breakdown by employment industry shows that ultra-Orthodox men in high-tech constitute only 3% of all ultra-Orthodox working people. This means a complete failure of a resource-intensive government effort to refer the ultra-Orthodox men to the industry. On the other hand, there was a sharp increase in the number of high-tech employees among women, and the proportion of ultra-Orthodox women working in high-tech doubled between 2020 and 2014 (from 2.7% to 5%).
Malach explains that in the current structure of ultra-Orthodox society the wife is usually defined as the main breadwinner while the husband is defined as a Torah scholar. This is the reason why the employment rate among ultra-Orthodox women is particularly large, more than 76%. Angel estimates that economic pressures like reducing meeting budgets may change the picture. According to Malach, there is a huge gap between the progress of the ultra-Orthodox public and its integration into general society – the so-called process of Israeliization – and the ultra-Orthodox establishment of rabbis and politicians. These control, among other things, the ultra-Orthodox education system, which hardly prepares the male students for the labor market, and core studies are a small part of it.
On the other hand, the current government, despite declarations of a dramatic change in the issue, has left the yeshiva budgets intact, it does not try to enforce core studies, nor does it develop the state-run ultra-Orthodox education program, which includes core studies and is in growing demand in ultra-Orthodox society.
And despite the limitations and difficulties, within a decade there has been a real increase in the number of ultra-Orthodox students being tested in the matriculation exams – even if they are not eligible for a certificate – which has risen from 24% to 37% (2008-2019). In those years, the rate of eligibility for matriculation in ultra-Orthodox society even rose from 11% to 14%, while among ultra-Orthodox boys it stands at 5% and among ultra-Orthodox girls at 22%.
According to the yearbook, the ultra-Orthodox population in Israel numbers about 1,226,000 (compared with about 750,000 in 2009). Its share increased from 10% in 2009 to 13% in 2021, more than one-eighth of the total population in Israel. In the ultra-Orthodox education system at school age, 362,000 students were enrolled in the 2007/08 school year, constituting 19% of all students in Israel and 25% of Hebrew education.