Yair Golan says open to government with Haredim but demands they enlist and ‘respect our way of life’

Democrats chairman Yair Golan says he’s open to a government with the Haredim after fellow opposition party chief Avigdor Liberman floated the option of including an ultra-Orthodox faction in a coalition that would replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but lays out a number of demands.

“Unlike Netanyahu, we won’t go to Bnei Brak or Mea Shearim,” Golan writes in a statement, referring respectively to a Tel Aviv suburb and Jerusalem neighborhood that are heavily Haredi. “Whoever wants a partnership with us needs to come meet us in Ramat Gan.”

Golan calls for conscripting young Haredim, integrating them into the workforce and “ensuring that every child in Israel will receive the tools to make a living honorably,” saying that “the middle class alone can no longer continue to carry the economic and security burden.”

“And just as we respect the Haredi way of life, we expect they will also respect our way of life. In our municipalities it needs to be possible to go out on Shabbat, drink coffee, and, God forbid, get there on public transportation,” the Democrats leader adds, stressing that while he is open to cooperating with the ultra-Orthodox he opposes granting them “a blank check.”