Chaim Ramon, former justice minister, published a post on Thursday that belied the current narrative that the IDF is desperately in need of Chareidi soldiers.
Ramon wrote. “About two months ago, the Knesset’s Research and Information Center published a document with data on recruitment rates according to population groups.”
“Of all the fascinating data, there was one in particular that made my jaw drop.”
“In the five months after October 7th, about 4,000 Chareidi youth submitted applications to the IDF on their own initiative. Want to know what the IDF, who constantly talk about the ‘urgent’ need for manpower after October 7th, did with them?”
“3,120 Chareidi youth were found ‘unfit,’ mostly due to medical incompetence. Has the IDF stopped recruiting low-profile soldiers for combat support units, intelligence, training, computers, and the Home Front Command? And that’s not even the worst thing.”
“Out of 880 Chareidim who were found eligible, only 540 were recruited. In other words, out of the 4,000 Chareidim who asked to enlist, the IDF recruited only 13.5%, and even out of the Chareidim determined to be fit for service, only 61% were recruited.”
“These numbers strengthen the claim that the IDF is not prepared to recruit masses of Chareidim and in fact, does not want to do so.”
Channel 14 journalist Shimon Riklin responded to the report by stating: “The IDF never wanted to draft Chareidim. There is not one senior IDF official in the past or present who doesn’t say this in personal conversations. But senior IDF officials will not interfere with the campaign of the left/Supreme Court to topple the right-wing government using this argument. The moment a left-wing government would arise, no one would say a word about recruiting Chareidim.”
Chareidi journalist Sari Roth wrote that after the Attorney-General and Supreme Court ruled that Chareidim must be enlisted and yeshivah budgets revoked, a Chareidi avreich called the enlistment center and asked what he should do since he no longer has an exemption to the army. The soldier who answered the phone said he shouldn’t do anything and should just wait until he receives an order to enlist. The avreich responded: “I shouldn’t come now to enlist?” The soldier responded that that’s not possible and he has to wait until he’s called in to be evaluated.
Meanwhile, despite the fact that he’s hasn’t received any order and no order seems imminent, he hasn’t received a kollel stipend in two months.
And this is not an isolated story. Right now there are about 66,000 avreichim and yeshivah bochurim who no longer have army exemptions but haven’t received any orders from the IDF. Despite this, their stipends have been halted.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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12 Responses
As Rav Sternbuch שליט”א and other gedolim keep saying: the whole issue about drafting Chareidim is nothing short of a גזירת השמד – all they want to tear down the boundaries between chareidim and chilonim and weaken the עולם התורה and their commitment to Yiddishkeit.
So why haven’t these wicked supreme court judges gone down in person to the army recruitment centres, & personally bellowed at them & forced them to accept every חרדי?
Probably because no lush air-conditioning nor plush armchairs at these recruitment centre’s like at their evil supreme court.
Did you read the parsha yesterday? yotzai Tzavah!! It is not a gezairat shemad to defend Eretz Yisroel!
Remember, there are gedolim from the RZ world whose children and talmidim gave their lives al taharat hakodesh. your rhetoric demeans them.
The IDF has no desire to have more Hareidim since they arrive lacking the skills secular Israelis get from pre-military training, and can never be expected to unconditionally obey orders (since they will follow halacha regardless of what the army tells them to do). The IDF doesn’t mind ex-Hareidim, since are trainable and obedient.
The secular politicians (who rule Israel) don’t care about the IDF’s manpower (if so, they would go after non-frum draft dodgers of which there are many, probably even more than among the Hareidim). They concerned with destroying the Torah world since according to everyone’s math they eventually be able to win a democratic election, so preservation of Israeli democracy requires destruction of the Hareidim.
It’s called Haaretzism. Bigotry against Jews, especially religious Jews.
Of course IDF doesn’t need Chareidim. It’s ll just a ploy.
It is very difficult to believe that (1) about 4,000 Chareidi youth submitted applications to the IDF on their own initiative in the five months after October 7th. That would mean that a VERY large percent of military age Chareidi youth tried to sign up and (2)they were overwhelming rejected. There has to be more to the story.
On another note if is true, then it should put to rest the claim that the army only wants Charedim for שמד. People looking for שמד don’t reject applicants because of things like medical incompetence.
Something doesn’t add up here – the numbers just don’t make sense. I’d love to know where Mr. Ramon got his numbers from.
an Israeli Yid
Nobody is interested in shmad
thats narishkeit
they want chareidim to do their fair share
you can keep your payos keep your learning but just participate in a manner befitting a torah jew
yasher koach to those who submitted applications (it seems in part because their payments stopped? but still). They should spend the summer exercising (can listen shiurim on tape) and B’H higher numbers will be accepted after that.
DrYidd: You are talking גאַנץ שׂכלדיק, which is foreign or offensive to more than a few commenters here.
Smerel, you are mixing up two different entities – the army and the leftist politicians. The army does not want chareidim, period. The leftist politicians do. They are terrified of the demographic predictions of the chareidim eventually becoming the majority, thus gaining political control. There are many different ploys being used to secularize chareidim and reduce the birthrate. The army is only one of them. BTW, it’s not only from the left who is afraid and taking steps. Netanyahu and others are equally concerned but tackle it from a different angle.
This was debunked as #FAKENEWS. The charedim that had rushed to enlist were generally men in their 40s who would have served in NON-COMBAT roles…As the IDF was scrambling to fight a (possibly) 2-front war, they needed (and continue to need) young combat soldiers to actually fight, not old, fat 40 year olds. The issue at hand is raising up the IDF and the country by sharing responsibility, not ch”v removing people from learning Torah.