Officials report “a sharp increase” in the number of chareidim signing up for national service over recent days. It appears a growing number of chareidim feel there will be a military draft and joining a national service program now will eliminate this fear from their lives.
In actuality, the numbers of chareidim signing up began increasing after the High Court of Justice declared the Tal Law illegal. In April 2012, 72 chareidim joined a national service program as compared to 43 in April 2011.
May showed an additional increase to 103 (compared to 80 in 2011), June 159 (74/2011), and on Wednesday, 7 Tammuz 5772, 77 chareidim arrived to sign up, more than the entire month of June in 2011.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
4 Responses
An alternative interpretation of the same facts. Since one can not fully participate in the zionist economy unless one has completed a national service obligation, there is a danger that once yeshiva students are being conscripted there will be no incentive for the government to keep open a non-military national service option, so now may be the last chance to gain access to the zionist economy without going into the military.
Akuperma, ease up. The national service program is decades old. The government’s incentive for sustaining it is the nearly free labor that the volunteers invest in the places where they serve. It wasn’t concocted as part of a vile plot to draft yeshiva students; it is being offered to the students in acknowledgement of their reluctance to serve in the army.
I suspect that this story was planted by the unnamed “officials.” The gedolim assured National service years ago on grounds of sakana r”l. Even the RZ rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu assured it recently because it allows Jewish girls to mingle with Arab boys r”l. Now we’re supposed to believe that hundreds of kosher boys are streaming to this program. Do they plan to come home afterward?
Serving in some form of national service such as in hospitals and schools, and thereby allowing others to serve in the IDF, is not an ideal option but certainly preferable to having these bochurim just do nothing but sit in kollel for a few years while others take the risk and endure the hardships of IDF service or alternative service. Kok hakovod to all those who kollel yungerleit who step forward and they will discover what a rewarding experience this will be and what positives will come out afterwards in terms of their finding a parnassah.