Despite a reported deal signed between Bayit HaYehudi and Yesh Atid, Yahadut Hatorah continues to call upon the dati leumi party to join together to form a religious bloc in Knesset. MK Moshe Gafne has called on Naftali Bennett to join with Yahadut Hatorah and Shas and abandon a deal with Lapid, but it appears this is not going to be the case.
Meir Porush and Uri Maklev met in a Jerusalem hotel with Uri Ariel, who heads the Bayit HaYehudi coalition negotiating team as the chareidi party continues efforts to persuade Bayit HaYehudi to join a religious bloc. Simultaneously, meetings between prominent dati leumi rabbonim and admorim continue as Rabbi Eliezer Melamed Shlita and Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu Shlita met with the Belzer Rebbe Shlita in the rebbe’s home as they continue efforts to build bridges with the chareidim.
The main issue dividing the chareidim and dati leumi communities is the share the burden, for Bayit HaYehudi feels service in the IDF is a mitzvah for all. Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, number five on the party list told Knesset TV that the reports that the dati leumi party is working with Yesh Atid to pull talmidim from yeshivos to serve in the military are simply untrue.
Ben-Dahan told Knesset TV that any talmid seriously learning should be permitted to do so, assuring listeners that the party does not intend to shut down any yeshivos. Ben-Dahan did say that the party is referring to those chareidim who are known to be registered in yeshiva, but simply not learning. He feels that they should be compelled to serve.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
The issue of people registered with a yeshiva but not learning depends on whether they are avoid the draft due to the IDF’s less than reasonable accomodations for hareidim (the solution is to have IDF accomodate hareidim in all units, not just a few special segregated units) VERSUS those who are avoid the IDF since they don’t want to have to walk into the army and announce they are refusing to serve because the medinah is in violation of halacha (which may be true, but is also high treason). The only solution of the latter that is viable, and will not violate international law, is to allow them to refuse to serve in the army as conscientious objectors (as is done for most frum girls, though Lapid doesn’t like that either). If the Dati Leumi camp can support and implement such an arrangement it will pave the way for a hareidi-dati leumi alliance that might lead to a Jewish takeover of Eretz Yisrael. Alternatively, the Dati Leumi can ally with the anti-religious, and the results may end up being painful to all concerned since the small number of hareidi anti-zionists will prevent any hareidim from enlisting and lead to international sanctions against Israel.
I don`t think anyone disputes Rabbi Ben-Dahan`s idea, except for Yair Lapid.
However, even if the non-learners should be compelled to serve, because they are not learning, they lack the spiritual backbone to survive spiritually in the army. If the chareidim were to agree to allow them to be drafted, they would be complicit in their spiritual downgrade. Thus, compelling them to serve requires the army to develop a chareidi chain-in-command for these boys who will evaluate every military order in light of true, chareidi-validated, Torah.
Yair Lapid, on the other hand, could not give a fig for the Torah-value system that he knows nothing about, and wants to conscript almost everyone, without any concern for the spiritual consequences. Although he leaves no doubt as to his political skills, his leadership and care for the needs of the people leave much to be desired. And those who will sign agreements with him, pretending that these risks are unreal, are guilty of the same ineptitude.
they lack the spiritual backbone to survive spiritually in the army…. OR THE PHYSICAL BACKBONE to become a competent and worthy IDF SOLDIER.
#2 – So now bochurs who are not cut out for a life of learning ‘lack spiritual backbone’? Have they not suffered enough, now we need to add insult to injury?
And reflect on this: How much spiritual damage are we causing them (and there are so very many of them) by forcing them to live a life of cheating and denial (and poverty)? And by making them the cause, or at least the scapegoat, for the curroption of the Torah world that also lies and cheats (and takes funding) ‘for them’.
Decades of experience have given the lie to the myth that army service causes spiritual damage. Countless are those who have entered the IDF as frum boys and left it as frum men. Those who contintinue to attempt to perpetuate the myth in the face of the evidence are doing so for highly questionable reasons.