After spending a month-and-a-half in military prison following his arrest at Ben Gurion Airport, Charedi Avreich Yehuda Elimelech Tumback was released from prison on Tuesday with a complete exemption from military service.
Kikar Shabbos broke the news in Israel regarding Tumback’s release. Tumback was initially arrested at the airport when he tried to leave the country heading to kivrei tzaddikim in Europe. At the time he had been considered absent without leave from appearing at the IDF registration office for more than six years. He had been expected to receive six months in prison but after the evidence presented by his attorney, Menachem Stauber, the presiding officer of the military court went lenient on Tomback and only gave him the month-and-a-half sentence.
Due to his good behavior he is being released a few days early and will spend the upcoming Shabbos at home with his family.
Tumback is a member of the Peleg Yerushalmi group and there has been a lot controversy within the faction as to whether to protest on his behalf or not because Tumback tried to leave the country via the airport, and thus more or less handed himself in to the authorities. Only a small fraction of Peleg followers protested on his behalf.
Additionally, there have been multiple splits within the Pelg itself over the past few months, with lots of infighting over what path to take since the passing of Hagaon Harav Shmuel Auerbach ZATZAL.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
5 Responses
I abhor any form of machlokes. But I am conscious of the dictate of פיזור רשעים רנה. I pray that the infighting lead to dissolution of this foolish group that glorifies the great inconveniences and trouble that they inflict on others, justified by making a point. I disagree only mildly with their position, but have never accepted that punishing the entire population is the way to deal with the differences. I also pray that the leaders of the projects to cause disruption to innocent residents of Yerushalayim get stopped from doing this public evil. The Gedolim need to stop them with the Daas Torah angle, and the law needs to punish them and make them stop.
Perhaps its time for them to hit the “pause” button and rethink the mindless demonstrations and interruptions to the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelis’ under their prior leadership. If Bibi really wanted to show some leadership, he would find 61 votes in the Knesset to enact some type of program that would allow Chareidi bochurim to avoid the IDF draft with some form of alternative public service.
national service (working in hospitals, etc.) is already an option – one doesn’t have to go to the IDF
gadoladorah – that’s exactly why they’re protesting.
not so many years ago, ANY bochur who was learning in yeshiva was exempt from the army.
nowadays, that is not the case, b/c Vaad Hayeshivos promised to fill a quota – so there are some boys who will not receive their draft deference for the stupidest of reasons – only b/c V”Hayeshivos has promised to fill the quote.
Anyone willing to debate logically with facts please read. Anyone who is only interested in spewing hatred without willingness to answer questions please skip this comment. It is important to note that a lot of the antagonism against these hafganos is due to a lack of understanding of what the problem is and why they are protesting we have to remember that if we felt that our kids are being kidnapped we would definitely understand much more the hafganos for example if a law passed that all the inhabitants of Bnei Brak will be thrown out of their homes to the streets (not at once but in stages slowly but surely) and after trying every way possible through politicians and the like there was nothing left to do about it and the inhabitants of Bnei Brak made hafganos etc. people would be much more understanding and we would not here comments of why punish everyone etc. if that is the only way to do it. Therefore it is important to realize why are they demonstrating. The basic questions on them are that 1.at this point of time no one is being threatened to be taken to the army and therefore how can this be called a gezeiras shmad 2. why not just go to the enlistment office and get a deferment? The fact is that a few years ago when the first law was passed a law which DID NOT THREATEN ANYONE WITH IMMEDIATE CONSCRIPTION to the army and everyone was able to go to the enlistment office and get a deferment the Gedolim from all factions of the chareidy community including agudas yisroel degel hatorah and shas got together and wrote a statement that if the law passes THEY WILL CONSIDER PROHIBITINF anyone from going to the enlistment office at the time Rav Yigal Rosen the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivas Ohr Yisroel and one who was considered to be a close confidant of Maran Harav Shteinman Zatza”l wrote an article in the Yated Neeman (Rav Shteinman’s newspaper) explaining how Rav Shteinman is for weeks pondering the shayla about whether or not to assur going to the lishkas hagiyus in the article R’ Rosen explains the dilemma that on the one side seemingly there is no reason to go all out against the government now and not to go now to the deferment office because right now no one is being threatened with being drafted on the other hand he explains how the entire point of their waiting a few years and not drafting yet is because they know that if they try drafting now they won’t be successful so they decided the best way to do it is to wait and meanwhile everyone will come to get a dichuy in the deferment office and there they will look out for potential bochurim who may be able to be recruited for the army and they put in hundreds of millions of shekel to trying to recruit people to the army and when they are successful in getting more and more chareidim into the army eventually the chareidim will become acclimated to the fact that chareidim serve in the army and it will be much easier for them to reach their goal of all chareidim serving in the army so therefore maybe the best way to deal with this is that right now we should say no! we will have nothing to do with this and when they see that they are up against a brick wall they’ll realize that there is now way to get the chareidim to go to the army because their not going to put tens of thousands of bochurim in jail Rav Rosen ends writing that Rav Shteinman is debating the shayla for weeks and has not yet decided eventually Rav Shteinman was quoted as saying that bochurim should go to the deferment office while R’ Shmuel Auerbach and with him hundreds of gedolei torah roshei yeshivos dayanim rabbonim and talmidei chachamim (google it it was at a conference in the tamir hall in Jerusalem at the time) said not to go to the deferment office those who follow these gedolim definitely have to follow them in this and the fact that they are being put into prison should cause the entire religious world to protest since whether you agree or not these boys are doing what they are mechuyav to be doing for example if their was a law that everyone has to eat rice on Pesach and people who didn’t were put in prison the sphardim would not say that we don’t have to protest since we see nothing wrong with eating rice on Pesach becausprotesting e the fact is that Ashkenazim are not follow the poskim who say not to eat rice on Pesach and therefore to force them to is religious persecution.