Yated Ne'eman, the most popular newspaper in the ultra-Orthodox community, recently published a sharp editorial in which it attacked the secular public. The article expressed the view of the common ultra-Orthodox community against the background of Israel's national military enlistment law.
The newspaper editorial was titled "And we bit him like a donkey," which suggested the attitude of Torah students toward the rest of the population. The article attacked the secular public and made the opinion clear that learning Torah is of higher value than equality in the burden IDF service.
Yated Ne'eman's justification for the ultra-Orthodox IDF exemption
"We need Torah scholars," the article reads. "There are too few, and we aim and encourage more and more Torah scholars among the people of Israel. This is what holds the Jewish people together. We are not being protected, but protecting."
According to the authors of the article, "It's not that we also contribute - only we contribute, and because of this commitment, we are ready to sacrifice and learn Torah."
Yated Ne'eman also argued that the talk of equal burden is "idle talk and lies," and added that "the secular public has apparently taken on the role of preserving the Israeli people, and the ultra-Orthodox public has taken on the role of preserving the Jewish people, which is the most important role.
"The secular public is based on liberalism that precisely imitates the depravity of the nations, and assimilates into its own country. This is an inequality in the burden since only Torah learners sustain the Jewish people. The secular population does not understand what the Torah is at all. Torah study is about the value, not the knowledge, and not the result. We are not the ones who disregard a 3,000-year-old Jewish obligation. The secular Jews are the ones who evade it!"