Since the beginning of the year, 340 Israelis who received draft orders and did not respond to them were arrested at Ben Gurion Airport while trying to leave the country.
Out of the 340 people arrested, 52 were Chareidim who received draft orders in recent months. Of those 52, 23 enlisted in the IDF.
The data was presented on Thursday to the members of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee by Brig. Gen. Shay Tayeb, a senior official in the IDF’s Personnel Directorate.
Tayeb said that approximately 14,000 draft orders have been sent to Chareidim since June.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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5 Responses
288 non-chareidy draft dodgers caught? – if so, surely there must be thousands of the leftists who are all pointing the fingers at the chareidim!
that’s about 15%. is that high or low? and where’s the rest of the draftees?
The number suggest that most “draft evaders” are in fact non-Hareidi, and that the IDF’s problem is not lack of Hareidi enlistment, but opposition to military service in the general populations. The solution is not closing down yeshivos (which has no impact on the general population), but perhaps reducing conscription and substituting higher pay and benefits for those who now conscripted).
akuperma, the difference is that most non-charedi enlisted – and 300 draft-dodges were caught. Of charedim, most did not enlist and 50 were identified as not Torah learners “at the moment” – while they were heading for a vacation.
The percentage of Hareidi draft dodgers arrested for trying to leave the country seems very similar to the total percentage of Hareidim in the Jewish population (presumably non-Jewish draft evaders are not arrested). The difference is that secular Jews who evade military service tend to be from the upper class, whereas Hareidim tend to be marginalized poor. And those running the Medinah, see the secular draft evaders as family, whereas they see frum draft evaders are mortal enemies whose very existence is a threat to the Zionism.