It was a bit cold, windy and rainy but for protesters at Jerusalem’s Kikar Shabbos, the weather was not a deterrent as they protested the incarceration of talmidei yeshivos refusing to cooperate with the IDF draft.
Hundreds of chareidim engaged police in a cat and mouse game as they blocked the major intersection in defiance of police on the scene. Police did not waste time and the water cannon was deployed against protesters, eleven of whom were arrested.
The protest followed larger protests outside IDF Prison 6, where a number of talmidei yeshivos are incarcerated at this time. Eida Chareidis Gavaad HaGaon HaRav Yitzchok Tuvia Weiss Shlita and Eida Chareidis Ravaad HaGaon HaRav Moshe Sternbuch Shlita were among the rabbonim traveling to the IDF prison earlier in the week. There request to visit with the prisoners was denied however.
Pictures From Last Nights Hafganah Taken By Moishe Wulliger
Photos: Areilah Teitlebaum, Chadashot 24
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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8 Responses
This is either a clever scheme to try to isolate the hareidim (meaning the anti-zionists who reject state funding and oppose the war on halachic grounds) from the frum quasi-zionists (who look hareidi, but accept and depend on state funding, often serve in the IDF after they leave yeshiva, and support the medinah and the war against the goyim) by concentrating force against the hareidim and hopefully encourage others to give in, OR ALTERNATIVELY it could be gross stupidity by the Israeli government to use “overkill” against people whose opposition to the state, and therefore to the war, makes them conscientious objectors, since not only are they very sympathetic from an international human rights perspective (religious based opposition to war is “cool” in western countries) but it will alienate the “moderates” who are all for being patriotic zionists but regard learning Torah as being a greater contribution to the medinah than peeling potatoes in an IDF kitchen.
SAD SITUATION and sorry state to have reached this pinnacle. Perhaps MKs can sit down and discuss this issue finally without boycotts and silence.
“regard learning Torah as being a greater contribution” There has been NO denial that learning Torah is a contribution to the state, EXCEPT this last week has shown (through protests and visitation)that there are multitudes of young men who are NOT learning and NOT involved with ‘Avodas Hakodosh’.
Get these men into a Sherut Leumi, National Service or some type of Chesed group and take off the military garb of dissent. Even the frum chutzniks are not buying the loudspeaker of “destruction of the Torah kehilla, annihilating limud hatorah, etc.”
#2- quasi-zionists (who have been serving in the army all along, perhaps in Nahal Hareidi, or in somehthing after they leave yeshiva) ARE NOT PROTESTING at this time.
The people who are protesting, and the ones the army seems to be focusing on (based on who they arrest for refusing to serve) are those who hold that the medinah is treff, and a soldier is not allowed to kill Arabs and destroy their property, and that the ideal would be a return to a legally autonomous Hareidi community within a non-Jewish states. If you hold this way, it isn’t a matter of “learning” versus “fighting” (or peeling potatoes) but rather whether doing anything that benefits the medinah is allowed.
The zionists should have started with the yeshivos that favor a state, fly the Israeli flag on occasion, and allow or encourage students to join the IDF if they leave the yeshiva to get a job – instead they are targetting those who opposed the existence of the state. As I stated above, this is very risky since this is the group that can and will try to hurt the medinah, and the medinah is very vulnerable.
not anonymous: I believe you meant to write ‘ONLY frum chutzniks are not buying…’
” the ideal would be a return to a legally autonomous Hareidi community within a non-Jewish states”
Is this a DISNEY or Spielberg fantasy????
#5- Neither. Sadly, it’s Satmar.
zionflag: It’s what anti-zionist would prefer, given that the zionist have adopted a policy of open persecution. Of course the zionists would be big losers (abortion would be illegal, laws on running around half-naked in public, marriage only between men and women, etc.).
However if you end up with 10% of Israeli Jews opposed to the medinah (what happens if the “fanatics” take over the hareidi community, a likely result of the current waive of persecution), Israel may find itself being coerced by the western powers to support a democratic solution – and the zionists are a minority in Eretz Yisrael already.
And there he is again (Akuperma) with his “international human rights” fantasy…..blah, blah, blah.
Not only does he not learn a WORD of the Torah he decries is not being learned in Israel, but clearly, he sits by the computer all day salivating for an article that relates to the IDF vis-à-vis chareidim. This is evidenced by the fact that 90% of the time he is FIRST to comment!
Now go learn something, phony!!