An Embarrassing Rabbis' Letter on the Draft

But it's not the rabbis you would expect.

Sometimes people claim that I only criticize problems in charedi society, not in my own. That is false; I have written critical posts about problems in religious Zionist society on several occasions. And here’s another. It’s not only charedi rabbis that sign ridiculous letters.

A public letter was just released, signed by forty rabbis in the religious Zionist community. These are respected and respectable people. Unfortunately, the letter that they signed is deeply misguided, full of falsehoods, slanderous, and downright foolish.

In translation, it reads as follows:

“Recently, people with agendas have tried to cause conflict between the communities in Israel, including between the charedi and national-religious communities. It is not a secret that there are ideological differences and disputes regarding the draft between different streams in the national-religious camp. We will continue to discuss and debate these, but we will do so as loving brothers. The attempt to take apart the nationalist camp, and the right-wing government, under the pretext of the “Draft Law,” is a trap. But more than that; the current version of the Draft Law has the ability to bring three times as many charedim into the IDF, in a way that will ease the burden on reservists and strengthen the IDF. The charedi agreement to this law is a historic opportunity and it is forbidden to pass it by! We strengthen the hands of the leaders of the nationalist camp to continue and support the right-wing government for many more years.”

Let’s go through the falsehoods and nonsense in this letter, and then make some observations.

“Recently, people with agendas have tried to cause conflict between the communities in Israel, including between the charedi and national-religious communities.”

Sure, there people who are using the charedi draft crisis to further an agenda of bringing down the government. But there are also people who are negating the charedi draft crisis to further an agenda of keeping the government in power (such as the signatories of this letter!). And there are other people who voted for this government and want it to do the right thing, and who simply recognize that this is a very serious problem, which the Draft Exemption Law makes much worse, and it should therefore be challenged.

Meanwhile, to accuse those challenging the Draft Exemption Law of “creating conflict” is a sick perversion of reality. The conflict is created by the charedi community, which point-blank refuses to send anyone relieve the burden of army service or help in any way, while simultaneously demanding that everyone else fund their lifestyle, and accusing everyone who objects to this of being antisemitic haters of Torah. And those in the Dati Leumi community who are trying to help charedim continue this situation are making the conflict worse.

“It is not a secret that there are ideological differences and disputes regarding the draft between different streams in the national-religious camp. We will continue to discuss and debate these, but we will do so as loving brothers.”

It’s unclear whether they are talking about the different views of dati’im and charedim, or different views among dati’im themselves. But either way, there is no loving discussion and debate by brothers. The charedim have made it very, very clear that they simply don’t see the rest of Israel as their brothers, they don’t care to help with the war in any way, and it’s not up for discussion. And the dati’im who are trying to help the charedim get their Exemption Law are trashing dati’im who oppose this, as discussed in the previous post.

“The attempt to take apart the nationalist camp, and the right-wing government, under the pretext of the “Draft Law,” is a trap.”

Actually, the trap is to believe the claims made in this letter, and to see the protest against the Draft Exemption Law as being about taking down a nationalist right-wing government, and not about a very serious problem that is an existential threat to the country. If charedim continue to be indulged with billions of dollars while not receiving an education, being underemployed, and not serving in the IDF, the state will eventually collapse, as even Jonathan Rosenblum has pointed out.

“But more than that; the current version of the Draft Law has the ability to bring three times as many charedim into the IDF, in a way that will ease the burden on reservists and strengthen the IDF.”

Three times as many?! You mean six thousand (out of a hundred thousand) instead of two thousand? Whoop-de-do, that will really solve the manpower crisis! But actually it won’t even bring in any more charedim. All it does is set very low targets with no serious enforcement mechanism. It’s simply a way to legislate the exemption for most of them and transfer billions of shekels.

“The charedi agreement to this law is a historic opportunity and it is forbidden to pass it by!”

I cannot figure out if the signatories are being dishonest or simply totally naive. To the extent that charedim agree to the law, it’s only because, as secret recordings revealed, they know that it’s a farce with no serious enforcement mechanism but with the immediate benefit of freeing up billions of shekels. They do not agree in the slightest to thousands of charedim joining the army; they have made it absolutely clear that they are entirely opposed to it.

“We strengthen the hands of the leaders of the nationalist camp to continue and support the right-wing government for many more years.”

And there you have it. The real reason why the signatories are defending the Draft Exemption Law is that it will keep the current government in power for longer. That’s what counts; not solving the IDF manpower crisis, relieving the burden on the reservists, or stopping the charedim from the accelerating drain of the economy.

Interestingly, after the signatures of the forty rabbis, there are signatures of twelve parents of fallen soldiers. And yet it’s only the fathers’ names that appear, not the mothers. There are only two possible explanations. One is that the mothers do not agree with increasing the burden of reservists and harming the economy. The other is that the organizers of this letter are so charedi that they do not believe in publicizing womens’ opinions.

There’s one positive observation, however, to be made. While this list of forty rabbis may appear impressive, there are many hundreds of rabbis in the national-religious community. And many of the “top names” do not appear on this letter, even though they were undoubtedly asked to sign. The majority of rabbis in the national-religious community apparently recognize the Draft Exemption Law for the moral, religious, security and economic disaster that it is.