My son is in the Nachal HaChareidi and they told us at a parents' meeting that they distinguish between who's "dati" and who's "chareidi" based on which elementary school he attended. If it was Chinuch Atzmai or a Cheider, he is entered in statistics as chareidi, while only Mamlachti Dati students are called dati.
Maybe they'd use similar criteria for these potential government aid programs. However, if someone went to a tichon and got a bagrut he probably wouldn't qualify.

so somebody who was "mitchazek" or a baal teshuva would not qualify under those terms, even though he might be living a full haredi life.

I believe that there much clearer identifiers as to whether he is charedi or not:

1) Did his mother use the left side or right side of the mikve?

2)Did he keep on walking, talking, etc. during the tzfira on Yom Hazikaron, Yom haTzmaut, etc?

3)Does his family shop at Yesh, Shefa Shuk, Bar Kol or...chalila BEST?

>>so somebody who was "mitchazek" or a baal teshuva would not qualify under those terms

Well, there's a precedent with the army deferment (although that whole arrangement before the Tal Law was not a legal arrangement, and got blasted by the Supreme Court).
The Vaad HaYeshivot was able to push for a "baalei teshuvah patur" for those Israelis who became baalei teshuvah before being drafted but had never learned in a yeshivah in their youth.
Of course, the larger question as to who is a chareidi in a social sense is not addressed by these government agencies. I guess that ultimately it's a matter of personal identification.
Many people might consider themselves chareidi but would be rejected by chareidi society, while many people the secular would label as chareidi would consider themselves far from it.

That makes so much more sense - I just couldn't figure out how a card-carrying Charedi in Israel could be such a trivia buff.

He stated that he reads "newspapers".
How could he be Chareidi?
How sad?

Rafi, Is your question, how does society or individuals rate another as Chareidi or Dati? OR Does the government have a criteria of how to rate an individual as Chareidi or Dati?

Two quite different questions and probable answers.

David, please tell your son we thank him for his service to Am Yisrael. May Hashem bless and protect him and all his fellow hayalim.

Mordechai,
Thanks, I'll pass on the word to him.

According to the definition of Chareidi as quoted by Rabbi Malinowitz in Chadash I think the quote is from Yeshayahu or Yirmiyahu, any shomer mitzvot would be considered Chareidi in the losse definition.
I noticed no one mentioned not having a TV as one of the criteria. Quite a lot of Dati Leumi also don't have TV, so maybe that's why. And it's difficult to really be sure. A family may not have a TV in their salon, but in their bedroom yes, like someone I saw in Har Nof, with Cable TV in their bedroom.
Go figure.
What really should be the definition is - way of life, respect for all including non-Chareidi, no illegal financial dealings even for holy purposes, and of course tzniyut, in clothing, and in words and behaviour.

On the street, all it takes is a white shirt, black pants and velvet kippah. Those are the 3 most important ingredients.

I wrote an entire book - One Above and Seven Below - to deal with this question.

I have also dealt with it in numerous places on my blog.

Most recently, and very relevant to this post, I used this argument to discredit the "findings" of the Taub Center for jewish Social Studies. Here is the post:

http://achaslmaala.blogspot.com/2010/05/if-figures-dont-lie-who-does.html

While I am here, I noticed that once upon a time you included my blog in your blogroll and after that you removed it. What am I supposed to make of that?

Best,

Chezkel

dont make anythign of it. Once in a blue moon I decide it is time to trim the blgoroll from all the blogs that havent posted in a few months or more. I think you hadnt posted for a while, so it got trimmed. I can put it back. I mostly get to blogs now through my google reader rather than the blogroll

>>Whenever there is talk about giving rights to haredim, or taking them away, I always wonder how the word "haredim" would be defined when someone wants to use those rights, or when the government wants to take rights away from someone.

After all the shameless self-promoting that I did until now, I do want to comment on what you wrote and say that I am confused as to what is bothering you.

You are mixing journalistic jargon with legalese.

What I mean is that, although a newspaper will use general terms in its headlines such as: New Law Will Exempt Haredim from Army Service, that's not what the political -or legal - language would be. The political language would be something like full time Yeshiva students and as such, be something easily definable.

As an example, there seems to be a bonus allotment for Child Allowances after the 3rd child. This is called the Large Family Law and, true to its name, it applies to any large family regardless of lifestyle. Journalists feel like calling it the Haredi Familiy Law which is a distortion of the true picture. You can call it what you want in the media but it is clearly defined by family size and not by hashkafa.

Of course, if in this case the law is truly designed for "all Haredim", then perhaps the language would be couched as "hat and jacket wearers" and, if so, it would be indeed based on who shows up to fill out the forms wearing them. Pretty simple.

Statistics is more of a problem as I discussed in the post that I linked to earlier.