Jake Turx, senior White House correspondent for Mishpacha magazine, recently proposed on X what he called an “eight-billion-dollar idea”: build a development in Israel tailored to the needs, standards, and lifestyle of American Chareidim, then use it as a prototype for similar communities across the country. With 1.5 million “potential customers” in America, he suggested, the model could be repeated again and again.

Turx framed this as a real estate opportunity, but an influx of that magnitude would fundamentally reshape Medinat Yisrael. Its broader implications, I believe, are far more troubling than the proposal suggests.

The last thing Medinat Yisrael needs right now is an influx of one and a half million Chareidim. Such a demographic shift would bring Israel significantly closer to becoming a theocracy, at considerable cost to Medinat Yisrael and Am Yisrael, and perhaps even more so to Torat Yisrael.

This is entirely aside from the question of military service. The prospect of another million and a half citizens who would overwhelmingly refuse to serve is, by itself, an enormous problem that would intensify an already dangerous source of resentment and division within Israeli society. But even if we put that issue completely aside, the political and religious consequences of such an aliyah would still be disastrous.

For the Zionist enterprise to succeed, the governing institutions of the state must remain secular. That is necessary for the good of the state, its citizens, and, perhaps most importantly, for the good of Torah and Yiddishkeit.

Eschatological visions notwithstanding, we are still living in the here and now. Halakha, in its current iteration, is diasporic. It developed over many centuries to sustain Jewish........

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