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Under the new law, who will pick the lucky 1800 Torah scholars each year that get exempted from the draft? The secular government will decide? If it is the roshei yeshivos, who (and how) will determine which yeshiva gets how many exemptions?
The law stipulates annual Chareudi recruitment goals to avoid an involuntary draft. Who will count as being a “Chareidi” to determine if the annual Chareidi enlistment goals have been met so that they won’t forcibly draft other Chareidim? How will they differentiate whether an enlistee is a Chareidi or Chardal or Daati? Does the government mark every citizen as to what version of Judaism he practices?
The law provides criminal sanctions against Chareidim who are drafted but refuse to enlist. Naftali Bennett of Bayit Yehuda claims that even though the law provides prison to those who refuse to serve, that in reality in wont be carried out. How can he be so sure a future government won’t throw Chareidim in jail as the law stipulates should be done? And if they aren’t imprisoned, what will happen to those Chareidim that are drafted but refuse to serve?
Merkaz HaRav students only serve 9 months in the IDF. Other hesder students serve 16 months. Why are Chareidim being forced to serve the full 36 months whereas the Daati are only serving 9 (or 16) months?
I assume the khappers will choose.
In case there’s someone who doesn’t khap what popa is talking about, from an online encyclopedia:
The Khappers were employed to kidnap Jewish boys (sometimes as young as eight) to fill out a quota of Jews required to enter the cantonist schools, in preparation for service in the Russian Army, in the situations where such quotas were not filled legally…
The drafters of the law assumed cooperation from the yeshivos, but it now appears they will be facing mass resistance. The “chappers” assumed that the Czar would allow mass executions to crush resistance. Neither Israeli nor world public opinion would allow that today.
Also, the khappers were other jews, I’m sorry to say. The Russian government required a quota of jews for the army, and the khappers would fill it.
For those who wonder why it is that hesder students are left alone, even though they only serve 9 months, it’s because they show an interest. The same is possible for the charedim if they would only show that they are involved. If they would only stop being bystanders in a desperate time. What if they started an “adopt a soldier program” (working title ;-)) where every guy learning takes one soldier and davens and learns for the sake of both of them. In one simple motion the chareidim would be showing that they are sincere about their beliefs and that they are invested participants in the struggle for security inIsrael . I am not saying this will remove a law that has been set in place but it will certainly alleviate some tension. There will be those who will continue doing what they are doing and those who continue to have their notions about the other…but if done sincerely it can be a step in the right direction.
to Moshebendavid “Will Anti-Zionist Jews be drafted? Will we soon be witnessing armed Satmar, Brisk and Neteurei Karta IDF soldiers?”
They wouldn’t even consider serving in the IDF, though a few individuals may be inclined to assist the Palestinians, or if inducted into the IDF, would be inclined towards “monkey wrenching”. However they will refuse to register and be the first to be rounded up. They will file complaints with international human rights groups (religious conscientious objection is protected under international law). Some will request asylum abroad (usually a victim of religious persecution is a “slam dunk” when seeking refugee status, which in most western countries gives you an equivalent of a US “green card”). Remember they hold the medinah is “glatt treff”, and the war is “michemis aveirah”. Some might set up a yeshiva in an Arab part of the country so they can both fulfill the mitsvah of living in Eretz Yisrael while embarassing the Israeli government by showing frum Jews living at peace with Muslims. If enough people do this it could lead to a single, non-zionist state replacing Israel.
What will be interesting are the “hareidim” who in the past supported the existence of that state, held that the IDF protects Jews (as opposed to endangering Jews), sometimes flew the Israeli flag and served in the IDF when they left yeshiva and often said that their learning was a “national service” (an idea the Israelis rejected)– one possibility is they will turn into anti-zionists, the other is that they will compromise and you’ll see new frum units and frummer hesder unit. Netanyahu and Bennett expect the latter; the former (turning into anti-zionists) could undermine the existence of the medinah.
Bilbo, so you are saying exactly what Akuperma says here often. It is a war of ideas and is not about necessity.
So in an effort to bridge gaps, first all Chareidim had to be considered one group, then yell and defame them on national TV. When you’re done with that, destroy the work in progress and try things head on. Now, all Chareidim have very deep feelings for the army, and others have very deep feelings for (or rather, about) the Chareidim.
It’s sad when you let people take you for a ride. Many factions would have allowed a military sponsored summer program over a few years. Working things out was not on the agenda. In fact, the existing chanells were only sabotaged.
The determination for who will be among the 1800 exempted Torah scholars will be managed by a committee of the Roshei Yeshivos. If the Roshei Yeshivos are unable to work with each other on this and agree on a decision, then the responsibility will fall to the Minister of Defense.
Whether one qualifies as “Chareidi” for purposes of the quota is primarily determined by whether one has attended a Chareidi yeshiva for at least a certain amount of time. The law includes criteria for what counts as a Chareidi yeshiva.
OddAnon: Which Roshei yeshivos? Based on past experiences in Israel, it will consists of those with the closest ties to the ruling class (this is politically important because if the Sefardim feel insulted, even pro-zionist Sefardim will continue to support Shas).
How they will deal with anti-zionists isn’t clear since the zionists didn’t realize they exist, and are only now beginning to realize that much of the hareidi community never bought into the zionist narrative about Jews having a right to rule Eretz Yisrael, or of the Arabs being a mortal threat to Jewish people (rather than former friends and potential friends annoyed at being chased off their land). When the anti-zionists refuse to do paperwork, will the Israelis start rounding them up? Will they be included in the 1800 exempt from Chappers?
Already the left-wing parties (both the zionists of Labor and Meretz), as well as the three non-zionists, predominantly Arab parties, have realized that they may have a new ally that could radically change the Israeli picture by making a “left” government possible (after 30+ years in which the right/center controlled the government). I suspect that fear of this happening will encourage the nationalist zionists to find a way to exempt many hareidim, even if it means allowing for any Israeli to be a “conscientious or religious” objector to military service, and that will transform the “1800” is a cap on the number of yeshiva students offered state subsidies. Bayit Yehudi and Likud Beiteinu may hate Torah, but they hate losing power even more, and the possibility of a Labor led coalition including Hareidim and Arabs will force them to back down.
MoshbenDovid – shame on you for asking questions! You are asking people questions that they neither want to think about or give answers! They want merely to say, “Do as I say!”.
OK, now shame on me for asking!
To all our D”L brethren: One thing the Atzeres proved is that the Chareidim are united against this draft law. They will unitedly rebel against it at all cost. Rosh Yeshivas and their Talmidim will refuse to cooperate at all costs, even jail time. The only thing that can positively come out of this is that the Yeshivas will move from their buildings to the jail houses saving the Yeshivas millions of shekels on utility and boarding expenses that will now have to come out of government funding instead. (Keep in mind that jails are expensive to keep up)
They are solid as marble and will not budge at all. Compromises are out of the question. So, I ask you, what’s going to be? Are you ready to fill up all the jails with chareidi bnei Torah instead of harden criminals and Arabs that sneak into places like Itamar and murder innocent families in unthinkably brutal ways? There is not enough room for both.
So I ask again. Now knowing how the Chareidim think and WILL act. What will you do to enforce your new law?
Answering MoshebenDovid who asked: “Can a Chareidi yeshiva get the same terms as Merkaz (or hesder)? Will the IDF have Neteurei Karta soldiers? “
Hareidim aren’t interested in the hesder yeshivot program as it existed in the past, and certainly not with the new cut backs (remember the movement leading to conscription is also anti-hesder — it’s Torah they are opposed to, not just hareidim). One probably could offer a hesder-type program that some hareidim would be interested (perhaps arrange for half a day military, half a day learning throughout military service, similar to someone who has a part time job while in yeshiva which isn’t unheard of). But that would be a radical change in hesder, and won’t work if conscription is involved, and would not interest anyone committed to full time learning, nor anyone anti-zionist. If conscription is abolished, it will be time to discuss whether a “hesder” could be developed for Bnei Torah who are interested in military service.
Neturei Karta people will refuse no matter what you offer since their objection is to state, and its wars. Since from their perspective the IDF is guilty of illegally spilling blood as part of their prohibited war, one must give up one’s life rather than serve in the army. It isn’t a matter of learning Torah. They hold that even an unemployed Am ha-Aretz should refuse to serve since the war is prohibited by Torah. One is increasingly seeing many hareidim who two years ago were quite content to take zionist money and be part of Israel, now sounding more and more like Neturei Karta. I would not be shocked in Neturei Karta offers a “thank you” banquet for Lapid and Bennett. Revitalizing the anti-zionist hareidim is undoubtedly the stupidest thing the current coalition could have done.
Softwords, do you really think that governments should allow themselves to be strong-armed by citizens? Does that seem to you to be a reasonable way to run a country?
JF:
Your question is not relevant vis-vis Chareidim. The Chareidim were there long before the Zionists foisted their disasters on our holy land against the wishes of the Chareidim, and the Zionists must leave them alone. Nothing to discuss there.
As for what the the Israeli government should do if Israelis refuse to serve, that is, indeed, a fair question and the likely answer is that, in theory, like any good government, they should govern “by the people” and therefore switch to a professional army as is done in all normal civilized countries.
The reason that neither of the above is realistic is, of course, that mandatory IDF service is an integral part of Zionist shmad, of turning its Jews into goy hebrew “Israelis”, and Zionism without shmad is simply impossible because they are both one and the same.
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