One cannot argue with the numbers and military statistics indicate that 2,000 bochrim and avreichim who identify with the chareidi community joined the ranks of the IDF during 2009. In addition, over 1,000 entered a national service program as an alternative to military service.
According to Colonel Amir Rugovsky, of the IDF Personnel Branch, a record-breaking 700 avreichim entered specially tailored IDF programs that accommodate chareidim, serving in the navy and intelligence corps. This is in addition to the 300 recruits joining Nachal Chareidi (Netzach Yehuda) annually and another 50 recruits who are utilized as instructors, ‘moreh chayalim’. (YWN-Israel adds that many of the inductees to Nachal Chareidi are not chareidi, but shabbat observant Jews who identify with other streams of frum yiddishkeit).
On the other side of the coin, IDF officials add 5,500 yeshiva students requested a deferment from service.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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One Response
It’s about time that they join the ranks, in ancient times it were the religious Jews that fought hard to defend the land and their fellow Jews from outsiders, and from their enemies. Today, not every “yeshiva” boy is cut to sit all day “learning”, many of them waste precious time doing nothing, they should all enlist and give something back to their country no matter how anti-Zionist they think are, they need to do their fair share. Because if it wasn’t for HaShem that created the medinah, this place would had become the 22nd arab country in the region, and no Jews would have been allowed to live here in peace.