Chareidim around areas of Israel will be taking to the streets in protest on Wednesday evening, 17 Adar II 5774. The protests surround the arrest and jailing of a talmid yeshiva who attends the Grodna Yeshiva in Ashdod. The talmid, Yaakov Yisrael Paz, was sentenced to 10 days in an IDF jail for adhering to the words of his roshei yeshiva. He ignored his first and second draft notice.
Protests will begin around Israel at 18:30, and they will take place in a number of cities including Coca Cola Junction (Bnei Brak), Cords Bridge (Jerusalem), Yishai Jct. (Beit Shemesh), Shilat Jct. (Modi’in Illit area), the entrance to Elad, Southern exit of Ashdod, Shareha Jct. (Petach Tikvah), IDF Prison 6 (northern Israel), Gilat Jct. (Near Ofakim in the south) and Dimona Jct. in the south.
Police announce that any sector has a right to express an opinion but commanders explain there will be zero tolerance to law breaking.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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19 Responses
The Chareidim around the country should take to the streets tying up traffic and making the police busy and tied up controlling the protests. After business is shut down due to the protesters the cops will be faced with the unenviable choice of either arresting thousands of protesters across the country, who will immediately be replenished with thousands of new protesters taking their places on the street and continuing to tie up traffic, business and the police’s time and resources, or alternatively to end their persecution and prosecution of the Torah community and Limudei Torah and release the Torah Prisoners of Conscience.
Otherwise they can start building new prisons for thousands of Chareidim.
In some ways this is significant. In the past, the arrests were for people failing to fill out paperwork correctly. Now it pertains to hareidim who are refusing to fill out paperwork. Not negligence, but deliberately. They are challenging the Medinah directly.
The establishment hareidi leaders (Shas and Yahadut ha-Torah) would prefer to avoid a confrontation at this time. That’s why they are for “tefillah” rallies rather than incendiary speechs. The probably feel that before anyone is drafted under the new law there will be a change in policy (perhaps Likud and Bayit Yehudi will back down, perhaps there will be an election and the new coalition will consists of Labor and the various non-zionist parties who will cancel conscription).
However anti-zionist hareidim are ready to do battle now. THe best approach for the state would be to ignore them.
Every minute another protest. Real Bitul Toirah.
They might as well do the right thing, join the army and learn at their spare time.
The boys enjoy the protests, but you don’t become a Talmud Chochom from protesting every minute.
may his rosh yeshiva should be sent to jail with him?
Instead of bitul torah by protesting, go and sit and learn. It won’t get him out any quicker protesting so use your time up for better and meaningful things.
“was sentenced to 10 days in an IDF jail for adhering to the words of his roshei yeshiva”
Sarcasm On: one gets 10 days in jail for listening to ones rosh yeshiva?
Sacasm Off: wasnt the boy arrested for being drunk and then for not filling out forms?
One way or the other he would be in jail.
The da should announce o tollerance for police incitement
Be in jail with Hashem on your side is better than joining those who will sooner or later fall, the government with its laws will disappear as fast as they came, the famous word is , its better to be in gehenom with a smart person rather than in ganeden with a silly person, because with a smart person you will find your way out of gehenom and with a silly person you won’t know how to take advantage of ganeden.
Confused. There is a law and Rabbis are defying the law. They should be arrested for incitement. Living in Israel with all the benefits ,monetary ,health, subsidies for food and for having baruch Hashem children, what is wrong with giving back..no one taking away the Torah Chas v,Shalom.. Robert Rogoff
dullradiance: If he was arrested for drunk driving, it wouldn’t make the news. His Rosh Yeshiva would be furious with him. And his biggest concern was that potential shidduchim would be annoyed. But that wasn’t what he was arrested for.
He was arrested for resisting (not evading) conscription. It’s the equivalent of burning your draft card in the US 50 years ago (not the equivalent “dodging” which would be something such as staying registered in college or yeshiva, pretending to be gay, or entering a sham marriage).
If the policeman really hated the kid, he would have arrested him from being drunk and ruined his life, instead of turning him into a hero.
#8
dont be so sure that hashem is on your side
maybe he wants all jews to help defend israel
dont we believe that everything that happens is because hashem wants it to happen
maybe israel and the army exist is because hashem wants them to exist
you break the law you have to expect to pay the price. a thousand people may speed but only 1 or 2 are caught and penalized. the IRS doesnt catch every tax evader but they get enough in order to instill compliance. you cant get everyone – but by occasional arrests you hope to instill respect for the law.
1818 #11: And maybe the holocaust happened because Hashem wanted it to happen. (He did. Same here.)
rkefrat: You are confusing law enforcement chasing criminals, with open rebellion against the state. There is never an issue of being “caught” while refusing to comply with conscription since refusal is open and notorious. It would be look mistaking Lexington and Concord as having been a dispute about gun control. Evading the draft and drunk driving are ordinary crimes. Refusing to obey the law and challenging the authority of the body making the law, especially on a political matter such as conscription, is an act of rebellion. If you fail, you are a rotten traitor. If you win, well, consider the English saying (my translation into modern English): “Why is it said the treason never prospers, because if it prospers, none dare call it treason.”
Just because the hareidim aren’t planting bombs and kidnapping soldiers doesn’t mean they aren’t getting ready to go to war with the zionists – it’s just that hareidim are using different techniques, but it is war, and for both sides it will be an existential battle (meaning that unless a compromise is reached, one side will be crushed – meaning an Eretz Yisrael free of Torah, or an Eretz Yisrael no longer rules by zionists).
To the robert rogoff’s of the world your asking a great question so i would say if i was in your position all these rabbis are saying something i cantcomprehend and they are involved in torah day and night and i am not then maybe just maybe i ought to find out what do they think is so bad and what are they protestingmaybe i dont understand the chasiyvusof torah as they do, ill do some inquiries so i can know the daas torah and daas of hashem
now really akuperma – remember the civil rights movement of the 60’s – how many rebellious people who were doing nothing more than civil disobedience ended up in jail. it wasnt until their cause was held to be in the right did the laws change. again, as the law stands if you break it you pay the penalty. I have a feeling that in the end down the road there will be compromise on both sides as i dont think chareidim want to go to jail anymore than the government wants to put them there.
Reply to #4 – I think there’s reason why the protest isn’t called in the name of the Rosh Yeshiva.
#11 & #18 – MAYBE Hashem wants Israel and the army to exist?? Of course He does! That should teach you something there. HE WANTS IT TO EXIST! THAT IS WHY IT EXISTS. That is why He performed nisim geluyim during the wars of 1948 and 1967. Non-religious soldiers have stated this clearly. Non-Jewish military experts have stated that Israel could not have been victorious on their own. Clearly, there was a higher power helping.
Perhaps the message here is that the gedolim who were opposed to the creation of the State, had in retrospect been wrong? Perhaps Reb Yoshe Ber ZT”L was correct when he changed his philosophy from the Agudah to Mizrachi?
You two make the perfect argument for the existence of the State of Israel. Thank You!
Yanky55: Hashem also performed nisim geluyim between 1939-1945.