According to the lead article in the June 12 issue of The Jerusalem Post, “Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft protesters shut down multiple highways and train routes, causing immense traffic in Israel for over two hours on Thursday (June 11).
“Two people were injured in the protests: one 21-year-old haredi protester who was hit by a car on Highway 1, and one 93-year-old man whose reasons for being injured have yet to be released. One woman later turned herself in to Israel Police and confessed to running over protesters.”
The article went on to say that “footage on social media showed several haredi youths at different sites of protest getting into physical altercations with drivers and Israel Police officers. The windshield of Transportation Minister Miri Regev’s spokesperson was smashed in one such altercation.”
The protesting groups continued their actions this week as well, with concomitant damage to public property.
The entire country should be ashamed of these actions.
Why were these demonstrations taking place? What law is it that the elected government of Israel wants to legislate that causes presumably religious Jews to go on a rampage that disrupts the lives of people all over the country?
We all know the motivation: the leadership of a large segment of the religious community objects to allowing their young people to serve in the Israel Defense Forces in its effort to protect all of us from enemies bent on our destruction. I repeat, protecting all of us – including those who do not serve.
Last week, the stakes ramped up even further as Knesset legislation advanced to recognize full-time Torah study as “significant service to the state.” The bill stops short of explicitly and legally equating full-time Torah study to military service. However, critics and legal experts warn that it creates an implicit equivalence, sparking heavy debate over draft evasion during military manpower shortages.
Frankly, it is inconceivable to most of us living here that in the minds of some in the religious leadership in this country there is a belief that studying Torah is fully equivalent to serving in the army and, therefore, full-time adult yeshiva students should be treated the same as those who put their lives on the line in battle defending the State of Israel from its enemies.
People recognize the right of citizens to oppose the government’s decisions, a basic tenet of a democratic country; however, there is a big difference between disagreeing with the government’s decisions and acting out those disagreements by closing down the state’s transportation system.
I understand the motivation of some portion of the religious leadership resisting sending their kids into the IDF for fear that their religious principles will be damaged by the culture of the times. That’s fair, and the concern can be seen as valid.
Yet I would submit that if this concern is so great that the community involved will not send its young people to the IDF under any circumstances, then perhaps it would simply be better for all concerned if they left Israel and went to a country where national service is not a requirement of citizenship.
For example, they could go to the US, which has large haredi communities in New York and New Jersey, as well as smaller enclaves across the country, and has no military service requirement. My guess is that the large yeshivas in places like Lakewood would welcome the influx of young adults with solid Torah credentials.
Of course, if such a move occurred, the Israelis would need to find professional work as well, given the fact that full-time yeshiva study into adulthood is not a commonly accepted “profession” in the US.
"I" to "we"
Make no mistake, I am not recommending that the haredi community move to America, but rather that this community stops the protests that inconvenience the very people who are protecting them and making sure they can study in peace and without fear for their lives.
In addition, they must begin to understand that their responsibility for the physical safety of Israel is no less important than what is being provided by the secular community that serves, and that Torah study is not equivalent to military service.
As a people bound by our covenant with the One above, it would be useful to look at politics, as well, through a covenantal prism. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks wrote:
“Covenantal politics is about ‘We, the people,’ bound by a sense of shared belonging and collective responsibility; about strong local communities, active citizens and the devolution of responsibility. My firm belief is that the concept of covenant has the power to transform the world. It sees relationships in terms not of interests but of moral commitment.
“It (i.e., covenantal politics) changes everything it touches, from marriage to friendship to economics and politics, by turning self-interested individuals into a community in pursuit of the common good. There is nothing inevitable about the division, fragmentation, extremism, isolation, the economics of inequality or the politics of anger that have been the mood of Britain and America in recent years.
“They (i.e., politics) have been the legacy of the misplaced belief that societies can function without a moral bond. They cannot, or at least not for long. That is why we are where we are. But we can change. Societies have moved from ‘I’ to ‘We’ in the past. They did so in the19th century. They did so in the 20th century. They can do so in the future. And it begins with us.”
We desperately need religious leaders who are sufficiently unafraid of the judgment of their colleagues to help the community, on the issue of universal military service, move from “I” to “We.” To stand up and say, once and for all, for the good of the country and the future of our homeland, “we” are all in this together – and mean that in every way.
Doing so will create a unity of commitment and purpose for the good and welfare of the State and the people of Israel. Anything less is a path to self-destruction.
The writer, a 42-year resident of Jerusalem, is a former national president of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel, a past chairperson of the board of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, and a board member of the Israel-America Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM).