A Light at the End of the Black Hat?

In speaking with a colleague last week, he shared his impressions of a visit to a hareidi town in Israel that is finding that, as it starts having to serve as a fully functional municipal entity, is learning that it is having to send its citizens back to work.  There are cracks in hareidi society which, despite its press, has been changing and becoming ever  more intolerant and machmir(strict).  This article from the Israeli Religious Action Center's website shows the levels of extremism and the hopeful protests from within and without.