Gedolei Yisrael are not in agreement as how to respond to plans to induct bnei Torah into the IDF or national service. On Monday 1 Adar 5773, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will be meeting with potential coalition partners from Bayit Yehudi and Yesh Atid to present the new draft plan prepared by the head of the National Economic Council Prof. Eugene Kandel. The new plan is more radical than the Ya’alon model while less severe than the Yair Lapid plan while demands setting a maximum number of bnei Torah permitted to continue learning annually.
The prime minister hopes both Bayit HaYehudi and Yesh Atid will give the Kandel Plan their stamp of approval but the two party leaders, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid have already signaled they will oppose it, the daily Maariv reports.
Despite Shas efforts to team up with Bennett’s dati leumi party to form a chareidi bloc, Bennett and Lapid appear committed to their agreement, to either join the coalition or opposition as a unit, each promising not to cut a deal with the prime minister without the other. Clearly, if the prime minister wishes to include the chareidim with their combined 18 seats in the coalition he will have to find an acceptable share the burden formula, which seems to lock out Bennett and Lapid with their combined 31 seats.
Likud appears to be heading away from the Ya’alon plan which was acceptable to Gedolei Yisrael Shlita in Bnei Brak. Some Yahadut Hatorah MKs released statements that they can live with such an arrangement, as did Shas officials. However, it appears the coalition cannot, resulting in the modified plan prepared by Professor Kandel. The new plan is more severe than the original plan in the hope of winning over Bennett and Lapid, but modified enough that Likud/Beitenu feels the chareidim will still accept it.
It appears HaGaon HaRav Aaron Yehuda Leib Shteinman Shlita is willing to accept the Ya’alon plan while HaGaon HaRav Shmuel Auerbach Shlita is unwilling to accept a situation in which bnei Torah are drafted. The new plan is just being unveiled so it is too soon to know if this will result in a change in the decision of Rav Shteinman.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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15 Responses
1. Will the government through people in prison for refusing to be in the army?
2. What will the impact be of the government cutting off its funding to students who don’t join the army?
3. Will the government block yeshivos from accepting foreign donations if their students don’t serve in the army?
4. Will they attempt to draft women (as per Lapid’s plan)?
5. To what extent will the IDF accomodate hareidi religious practices?
1. no
2. they will be hungry
3. not possible to do. also forein funbding is not enough to float their entire budget
4. no. they dont want them
5. the charedim need to work with them
Now that its clear that even some of the gadolim recognize the need for a compromise on the issue of drafting kollel yungerleit into some form of national service, its only a question of time until the hard-liners also agree. There is no question that a middle ground is possible if both sides in the debate are truly interested in whats best for EY rather than scoring cheap political points.
my opinion is to let the chareidim go to the army to be mashbia the chilonim. if you are worried about the opposite happening, this is their challenge to earn more olom haba. now before moshiachs arrival we need to give all the secular jews a last chance to join us.
to #2.
1. Tell that to Lapid. He says no more than 400 in yeshiva, the rest go to the army or prison.
2. They got along without government funding before 1948, and without government funding in America.
3. Very easy to block foreign contributions. They do it all the time to Muslim groups they don’t approve of.
4. If they don’t want women, why did Lapid do so well. From what I know of hilonim, they definitely want the girls (no more need be said in this forum, obviously).
5. The army has had 60 years to accomodate religious practices, and that fact they didn’t do so except in isolated cases for special units suggests they don’t intend to.
#1-
1. Few, if any. What purpose would it serve?
2. Depends on the law that is passed. Possibly very extreme indeed.
3. Depends on the law that is passed. Possible, but very unlikely. Probably wouldn’t withstand scrutiny of Bagat”z.
4. No. Lapid himself has already agreed to this point at the insistence of harav Piron and Habayit Hayehudi.
5. Despite what you read in YWN, the IDF goes out of its way to accomodate religious needs. Even in its early days, when there were few religious soldiers, Ben Gurion decreed that the IDF would keep kosher, observe shabbat and chag to the extent possible, and have its own internal rabbinate to care for the religious needs of the soldiers. With the explosion in numbers of religious soldiers we have seen the IDF learn their needs and adapt – not out of force but as its own policy. To the extent practical, even chumras followed by a significant nimber of soldiers have been accomadated (such as basar chalak). Yes, there is sometimes a learning curve; yes, the occasional commander steps out of line (and is reprimanded); and yes, not every chumra can be accomidated. But you can expect great good will in this matter.
I don’t understand why don’t the chareidim come back with an offer that allows for a limited draft in return for:
1. Chiloni guys coming to yeshiva for 1 year on government expense on volunteer basis.
2. a fare share in statw tv time.
3. full fare & democratic access for chareidi speakers to army bases, universities etc.
Save Israel, abolish the draft.
Is the Brisker Rav and the Cazon ish o.k with the Yaalon plan?
at som epoint in time Isarel will probably abolish the draft. until then akuperma. the rules must be followed. in response to your respones:
1. Lapid’s platform does not call for 400. its a lie from the charedi media. please see his website. Also it is only for NEw recruits so they wont have to jail those that arent in the system yet. he favors economic sanctions.
2. they were hungry before 1948 and relied on donations from most of the world. I doubt kupat ha’ir can photshop enough pictures to raise enough money to support everyone.
3. they only block funding to terrorist organizations. thats why there are so many (in fact too many NGOs) that are fpreign funded in Isarel. They will never block foreign money. the economy needs it.
4. they dont want the frum women. exactly for the reason that you couldnt sepcify. thats why the dati leumi women serve voluntarily only. in fact there is a unit to track down girls who lie and claim they are religious while in reality they arent.
5. we as charedim had 65 years to be a good influence on our brothers who arent frum yet. the fact that we failed and demand to live in our neighboorhoods show that we failed. we should associate with the non frum Israelis and be a good influence on them. (i.e. no throwing stones/ dirty diapers or yelling). the world is NOT out to get us.
in response to wen zeidy was young- are they ok with the way we charedim are behaving today?
#5-
1. Dearly though you seem to wish it, Lapid IS NOT saying that he wishes to imprison ALL who will not serve. He is merely saying that imprisonment should be ONE OF THE AVAILABLE sanctions in the law. No one (on the Zionist side) envisions this sanction being used much, if at all. And neither the Bayit Hayehudi nor the Likud is onboard with that particular sanction.
2. There are such tremendous differences between Israel in 2013 and pre-1948 Palestine (and the US) that the comparison is specious. If you think it isn’t going to hurt very badly you’re really kidding yourself. It is time to realize just how much money the Israeli government tranfers to charedim every year (and it wouldn’t hurt to say ‘thank you’ either. Just saying).
3. No, ‘they’ don’t block foriegn contributions to ‘Muslim groups they don’t approve of’, only to organizations involved in terrorism.
4. WOW.
5. See #6 above.
While YWN does not normally summarize/abstract it, it is useful to see what people like Lapid are saying on the hiloni websites. He is very clear that the army will decide how many hareidim it doesn’t need, and the rest get drafted or go to prison. There has been no talk of compromise.
#1 
1.
They well know it will be foolhardy
#12
2.
Compared to how much the state has absconded,they have given miniscule
#6
(Sigh) you are completely disingenuous
(but who cares)
Let’s just start:
iirc what about the two who were kicked from iaf pilots course because their having beards would affect ‘unit cohesion’
“The treasury will offer charedi men incentives to encourage them to join the police and fire fighters, or even the IDF at the age of 20, by setting quotas for lifelong yeshiva students.”
“Naturally to the unrespected units.The new air fire-fighting unit,for example, is closed to charedim.”
Sunday, August 12th, 2012
“In an interview with Israel’s Globes Financial, former IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi explains that from his perspective, the drafting of chareidim is not a security matter but one that has social ramifications in line with the call to ‘share the burden’. Ashkenazi admits the drafting of avreichim is not about needing them to defend the country, but it is about everyone doing his share to protect Israel,
#10
Most of Bnei Brak were shopkeepers before they were forced out by the Mapai
“without government funding in America”
EVERY and those who are not sure EVERY YESHIVA in USA receives government funding whether it includes books, busing, lunch program, security, etc. grants. How the yeshiva uses this money that the government dispenses is debatable…