Better Dead Than Drafted?

A shocking interview

In my post about the tragic death of young Yosef Rosenthal, “Terrible Accident or Murder?” I noted that the riot in which it happened took place under a banner declaring that it is better to be killed rather than enlist. This echoed a declaration often pronounced by the Peleg faction of charedim, נמות ולא נגייס.

I asked whether they really think that it was better that this fourteen-year-old died rather than ended up in the Chashmonaim Brigade?! And I answered that of course they don’t. It’s just typical Israeli charedi exaggerated rhetoric, like when they claim that they believe that Torah protects from Hamas and Hezbollah even though they don’t rely on it to protect from anything else.

Was I wrong? Today there is a shocking interview with Rosenthal’s father, which you can hear by clicking on the video below:

Rosenthal’s father explicitly states that while he does not know what he subconsciously believes, his conscious position is that if he would have been given a choice between having his fourteen-year-old child die this way, or live and enlist into the charedi brigade of the IDF, he would have chosen for him to die this way.

Of course such a position is appalling from a non-extremist charedi perspective, but what about from a charedi perspective? I think it should still be disgraceful. First of all, the overwhelming majority of IDF soldiers *in religious frameworks* remain shomrei mitzvos; even if they stop being extremist charedi, surely extremist charedim do not consider someone who is still shomer mitzvos as better off dead. Second of all, surely even an extremist charedi should recognize that even those who fail to maintain their religious identity outside of their ghetto and stop keeping certain mitzvos bein adam l’Makom (while keeping more mitzvos bein adam l’chavero) are not resha’im and are still better off than people who die. Third of all, the fact is that parents usually still love their children even if they go off the derech and do not wish that they had died.

Now, we have to bear in mind that this is a grieving father. The fact that he says this does not necessarily show that he actually means it, as even he admits. Personally, I am extremely skeptical. But the fact that he says it, and does so because he is proud of this position, is a shocking reflection on his society.

It’s approaching the same martyr mentality with children that we’ve hitherto only seen with the Palestinians. And if this is the line that extremist charedim are taking - sending a message that even the deaths of their own children do not mean that they were wrong to engage in violent riots, because this is a better outcome - we can only expect more tragic deaths.