E
liyahu Lax, who is the representative of chareidim serving in the IDF, told the media today that it is time for the military to stop pushing their buttons, to bring an end to the campaign targeting chareidim in the military.
During a special session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs & Defense Committee addressing military service among members of the chareidi community, committee chair MK Shaul Mofaz called to amend the Tal Law, which grants deferments to chareidim.
Lax was not on the defensive, but quite the contrary, questioning why the IDF simply does not keep to its word regarding agreements surrounding chareidi programs in the military. He questions the continued demands for chareidi enlistment when current realities simply do not permit a chareidi yid to maintain his lifestyle. When promises regarding conditions for chareidim are broken, and military regulations pertaining to matters of Yiddishkheit are ignored, no one shouts and no one runs to the defense of a chareidi soldier he explained.
He cites what everyone knows, the compromised standard of kashrus, lack of tznius, insufficient time for davening are major issues, pointing out that when one is on a base there is no excuse for ignoring these issues. He questions the justification for sending chareidi soldiers to clean a women’s bathroom, and why this does not seem to trouble anyone. He reports that he has documentation of chassidim sent to basic training in bases that half of the population was female, a violation of the agreement made with the chareidi askanim who work with these programs. This and much more he insists is at the heart of the problem, and if the country really wants chareidim in the IDF, it is time to begin creating an environment that is chareidi friendly.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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3 Responses
Let’s be honest. If these guys wanted to defend the Jewish community of Eretz Yisrael they would stay in yeshiva. An hareidi enlists in the IDF to get a parnassah – because he is more interest in gashmiyus (no disgrace, most people in the world are motivated by that). And if he can’t qualify for one of the elite units protecting Eretz Yisrael (i.e. the yeshivos), me might as well worry about his parnassah.
But if one really believes the IDF is short of soldiers? If they did, they would bend over backwards to accomodate hareidim. There is nothing like a manpower shortage in wartime to make religious accomodation into good policy.
@akuperma:
Your reactions on topics about Israel are always very biased and colored but this time you are making me hurl.
Just because your haskofa is what it is you don’t need to belittle all the religious folk who serve in the IDF who are there because they want to do all the mitzvot involved in serving in the army (protecting their people, saving lives, helping settle the land, etc.), they aren’t there because they are second grade and they (at least most of them) aren’t (just) there because they just want to make a living.
It is this type of attitude that is destroying so many youth today, they don’t fit in and therefor they are “grade b”, and once they are already “grade b” why should they continue to care about what their parents/community think?
Unless the people who run the Medinah, including but not limited to the people running the IDF, give up on their dream of a nation free from the yoke of Torah (as expressed so eloquently, and from our perspectiving, menacingly, in the zionist anthem) – the conflict is inevitable, unavoidable, and probably will cripple the ability of the Medinah to survive. Either we frum Jews have to “get with the program” and become something like “conservadox”, or they have to give up on the program. There is no possibility of compromise, and realistically, we will never abandon Ha-Shem, and they will never give up on their secular lifestyles. Sooner or later the Medinah will go the way of all states, and become extinct. At that point we will all look back, and say what a waste it all was, and what will be the, in hindsight, the factor the enabled the Jewish people to survive: the Bnei Torah who sacrifised their livlihoods and social positions in mainstream society to devote their lives to Torah and Mitsvos. This is how it always was, and always will be.