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Natan Slifkin's avatar

No, they cannot accurately be describes as Nazis according to the dictionary definition. But then, lies are not a problem for you, especially when it comes to misrepresenting my views. Banned.

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Uri Yaakov B's avatar

Yes they can. Much more easily than you can describe chareidim as parasites.

"one who is likened to a German Nazi : a harshly domineering, dictatorial, or intolerant person"

" a person who is fanatically dedicated to or seeks to regulate a specified activity, practice, etc."

"having extreme and unreasonable views"

All of these fantastically describe people like you and all those who want to jail chareidim.

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Natan Slifkin's avatar

Interesting. So you're saying that it's not okay to call charedim parasites, but it is okay to call people who want to apply the draft equally Nazis?

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Uri Yaakov B's avatar

Both are totally unacceptable. Mr. Fishman was alluding to your sickening article here https://www.rationalistjudaism.com/p/can-people-be-parasites

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Nachum's avatar

If they didn't kill six million Jews, they're not Nazis. Jews of all people should appreciate this fact and not go running to dictionaries.

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Uri Yaakov B's avatar

Oh, really? But you were totally fine with this, weren't you? https://www.rationalistjudaism.com/p/can-people-be-parasites You despicable wretch. Mr. Fishman's comment was no different.

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Bruce Mosenkis's avatar

Natan, While I totally agree with everything you say and read your blog religiously, as you eligantly express my thoughts, sadly, the chareidi world is lying to themselves and to us. This has nothing to do with torah. They just don't feel any responsibility to the state or to general society. They see themselves ss Noah on an ark. They could join the pre-war Polish parliament so they can join the knesset. Just as they fought all attempts at drafting into the Polish or aRusdian military, they will fight against joining the Israeli military.

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Natan Slifkin's avatar

You're absolutely correct. But at the same time, it's important to dismantle the arguments that they profess to believe and which many actually believe that they believe.

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Nachum's avatar

Achim LaNeshek are crazy.

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Chana Siegel's avatar

IDENTITY THEFT This person is posting under my name.

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Fiddler on the Israeli Roof's avatar

Stop pulling your punches, Rabbi Slifkin. These people are now actively engaged in collective efforts that go against Israel's war efforts. They are de facto fighting against Israel. They are in no way part of the Jewish People any more.

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Natan Slifkin's avatar

Correct. I wrote a post about that, in which I reached that conclusion, albeit for slightly different reasons: https://www.rationalistjudaism.com/p/the-charedi-secession-from-klal-yisrael

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Saul Katz's avatar

I grew up in Williamsburg, (that time is was not all chassidem) and there were sometimes fights with goyim. As a child I noticed, every time the chassidem would go in a large groups pressed together and put on a show of tough guys while standing across the street from the goyim. However when 2 -3 goyim would come out and across the street, ready to fight, the whole lot of them ran, and the goyim had no one to fight with. When those few goyim went back to their side, the Chassidem came back, pressed together again, screaming and acting tough again. this happened several times until the police showed up. I always wondered .....the goyim had 2-3 people coming, you are a group of 50 or so, why run like rats in the night, stay and fight.

Israel is the same, they gather together tightly pressed and scream, spit. call Nazi's, and act like tough guys. 5 Israeli female solider come at them and they run like if they are backing out of the seventh hammer of Gehenim...... then they come back again. Repeat! One or Two stay on the gutter, but if they would get 2-3 blows from a baton, even these 2-3 idiots would run .

OH - Yes sure, these guys are going to face off with the strong soldiers or police and they will beat them and win. There is nothing wrong with this - you are allowed to fantasize - don't we all do it.

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Weaver's avatar

Has the time come for the IDF to just pull all military protection from Chareidi communities?

If they refuse to assist the IDF in any way, or participate constructively in the State of Israel, why should they benefit from it? At least Satmar is consistent.

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Saul Katz's avatar

I think this is wrong - Not to protect them form harm or from suicide bombers. The Country has an obligation to protect everyone. No different then protecting the Arab community, The gay community, The woke community.

What we should do - if anyone is a DRAFT DODGER, and they don't protect the state

they should lose,

1 -All monetary benefits from the state -Welfare, Food subsides, Child care etc.

2 -They should lose their rights to vote

3 -After 18 if they don't Enlist - they should lose any money for Education

However, Protection or Medical is another thing.

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Gdalya's avatar

I' am not making any statement of agreement or disagreement, but suggestions 1 and 3 make sense. Suggestion 2 depends on whether draft dodging makes them criminals and if other criminals in the same category as draft dodgers lose their right to vote.

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Saul Katz's avatar

Even if other criminals acts don't (or wont) makeyou ineligible to vote. Not serving in the army is a crime against the country. In that case you cannot participate in in the government - hence elections.

Also no draft dodger can hold any position in the government or any employment where the government pays you. It is only fair if you don't participate you don't benefit!

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Gdalya's avatar

This is silly. Do you know how many people (in many countries including the U.S. (when they had drafts like during WWII and 'Nam) and Israel) don't serve due to "conscientious objection". Avoiding a draft is not a crime against the country.

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Nachum's avatar

Very few, actually. And those people weren't avoiding the draft; they would show up and declare their objection, and then they would serve in a non-combat or non-military capacity. Surely you know this.

And those countries don't have small populations and are engaged in life and death wars.

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Gdalya's avatar

We tried showing up and declaring the objection of the Gdolei Torah. But those in power are claiming that it is a Jewish state but are not following ANY da'as Torah at all (they don't even follow the da'as of the nationalist religious). So, no ,we are not mshuabad to them when the Gdoley Torah say that we should not do what they say.

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Saul Katz's avatar

During Vietnam, thousands had to run to Canada if they wanted to avoid the draft and not have to sit in a cage.. After the war, there were long arguments if they should be let back, and how etc.

That is what I said -the same should be in Israel. If you don't want to serve you should have the right leave the country for good. A Win/Win for everyone

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Gdalya's avatar

When faced with following the words of today's Gedoley Torah or a bunch of A bunch of renegade Jews (who betray the Torah and rebel against the Creator), I will follow the former and not the latter (even if a whole bunch of shomrey mitzvos decide that they want to follow the former).

We have been breaking the law in the name of the Torah in many instances for 2000 years. And if you want to claim that what the Torah wants in this case happens to coincide with the secular Israeli law, you may claim so. But you do not have a monopoly on deciding what the Torah wants from us.

(I assume that had you been in Persia during the time of Purim, you would have railed against Mordechai too for breaking the law by not bowing to Haman - and also thereby "endagering" all the Jews. And Mordechai was involved in the gover nment(!), so how could he break the law?)

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Moshe M's avatar

How about sanctions against the gedolim? Is it legal to publicly instruct others to break the law?

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Saul Katz's avatar

Nah -- you can not touch the Gidolim, after all they are big Gidolim, holy people,

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Gdalya's avatar

The Americans did before they kicked out the British. I don't hear any Americans complaining about it today. Today they are considered heros. So are Russian refuseniks who escaped. So are Jews who studied Torah when the Goyim made a gzeira against Torah study. Etc. etc. etc.

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Chana Siegel's avatar

No driver's licences.

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Nachum's avatar

You can't pull protection from some parts of the country. Think about it.

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Ezra Brand's avatar

Funny description on the poster:

יחידת לוכדי העריקים מגיעה בלילה, בחסות החשיכה, מתוך כוונה לבצע מעצר מהיר וחשאי ללא התנגדות

"The unit of deserter-catchers arrives at night, under the cover of darkness, with the intent to carry out a quick and secret arrest without resistance."

Makes me think of the 19th century khappers, hired by the kehilla, to fill the cantonist quota. Maybe intentional?

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Ephraim's avatar

Could very well be. They have already used the term "cantonist" in this context.

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Nachum's avatar

Well, Lando met with some "hostage families" yesterday and ended by saying that he's "not political" but then asked the trite, and stupid, question of "What if it was Bibi's son?"

So much for him being some sort of genius.

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Chana Siegel's avatar

Awkwardly forgetting abour Bibi's brother...

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Nachum's avatar

He may not even have ever known.

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Chana Siegel's avatar

Yes, that omniscience claim wears thin fast.

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YidPoshut's avatar

Meh.

The army is a spiritual danger, combatted with physical responses.

The terrorists are a physical danger, combatted with spiritual responses.

This is taught in every yeshivish elementary school in the US. I assume this is the curriculum in chareidi israel as well.

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Ephraim's avatar

"The terrorists are a physical danger, combatted with spiritual responses."

We don't believe in faith healers.

"The army is a spiritual danger, combatted with physical responses."

בראתי יצר הרע ובראתי לו תורה תבלין

Don't get overwhelmed by cute drush and simplistic answers. Life is more complicated than that.

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YidPoshut's avatar

"We don't believe in faith healers."

You have different beliefs than most chareidim and Yeshivish people. Surprise.

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Chana Siegel's avatar

If one is dead, there is no spiritual danger. Be careful how you apply this logic. 😬

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YidPoshut's avatar

This logic is applied in certain circumstances according to all rabbinic opinions. (יהרג ואל יעבור)

The killing of children to prevent their baptism/ being raised by the church, was done in Europe with rabbinic sanction. There was vehement protest from other rabbis ( tragically, after the fact).

The debate centered around being proactive versus passive in application of יהרג ואל יעבור

The Golus is long.

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Mordechai Gordon's avatar

Brilliant! It would be hilarious if it wasn't so appalling!

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Shy Guy's avatar

Maybe we can call the Parushsites.

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Simon Furst's avatar

Why didn't you write about the bochurim getting kicked out of itri?

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Ephraim's avatar

Obviously, those fellows' Torah study wasn't necessary to defend the country.

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Shy Guy's avatar

Tell us more.

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Michael Sedley's avatar

Look at the comments in that article, gives a real insight to the mindset of parts of the Haredi community, even more than the comments on this website.

Unfortunately, from the comments it looks like parts of the Haredi community live in a completely different reality from the rest of the nation, and I don't just mean that they rely on a different Kashrut authority, they seem to lack self awareness.

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Weaver's avatar

Not to mention whiny and endlessly self pitying.

https://haemtza.blogspot.com/2024/11/a-kallus-view-of-army-service.html.

A semi-prominent Rav actually kvetches that it's insulting to accuse them for shirking army service because he had relatives that died in the Holocaust. As if soldiers in the IDF DON'T have family who died in the Holocaust, or that it's relevant in any way in the first place.

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Natan Slifkin's avatar

I'm trying to resist the temptation to listen to Kallus's populist nonsense. Too upsetting.

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ChanaRachel's avatar

Don't. It's horrid. I stopped in the middle when I almost punched my computer screen.

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Weaver's avatar

You're not missing much : ). Intelligent internal dialogue is not a strong suite in the Chareidi world.

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Dovid Gottesman's avatar

You ruined my night a little bit by putting this shiur on my radar. I've listened to 15 minutes and it's quite ridiculous

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Aron T's avatar

I beat you by a bit. I got to 16 minutes before I couldn't listen anymore :-)

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Saul Katz's avatar

This one is so silly I don't think I am going to add this excuse to the 20 excuses have already?

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James Nicholson's avatar

One of the things I find interesting is that there is a commenter there named Square_Root who brings in sources from Tanakh, from Gemara, from the Rambam, etc, but nobody engages. They all just say that the current gedolei hador must know those sources better than anyone, and therefore, anything which contradicts the opinion of the gedolei hador is not valid. And I don't think that's a Torah-true way to have a discussion (when I say Torah-true, I mean Hillel and Shammai).

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Simon Furst's avatar

Unfortunately true

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Dovid Gottesman's avatar

Oy, the comments there are a (bad) joke

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Simon Furst's avatar

Unfortunately the sentiments represented in the comments are deeply believed by large numbers of people in many communities

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Dovid Gottesman's avatar

I haven't opened up YWN in a long time, so I started browsing through it again, it's more of a dumpster fire than I remember

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Aron T's avatar

I think it's particularly simple people that comment on YWN. Most normal people that I know read the articles but don't bother commenting

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Shy Guy's avatar

The image at the end of article is smack on!

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Ash's avatar

Way better than the parasites post. Things are looking up!

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D.apple's avatar

If chareidin don't want to join IDF why not at least help out in other substantial ways? Studying Torah is not an acceptable substantial way. The chareidim ""Popes" IDOLs need to be convinced. The chareidim sheep need stop behaving like sheep and do the right thing on their own

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Ephraim's avatar

Who remembers that old story of over a century ago? Students complained to R' Chaim Brisker over how the maskil scoffers put on a play making fun of the procedure of exempting soldiers from battle. After exempting the fearful (due to sins?) there were only a couple of elderly Torah scholars left. One version, has it that is was the גר"א and the שאגת אריה. Rav Chaim told them that the play was actually faithful to the truth and the two lone תלמידי חכמים soldiers were successful in winning the war.

I heard the story some 40 years ago, and it certainly has been repeated approvingly in Charedi circles.

So at the risk of antagonizing the modernishe types who go skeptically apoplectic over rebbishe ma'aselech I'll repeat it again: the two תלמידי חכמים soldiers were successful in winning the war.

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Nachum's avatar

I suppose Briskers are just as susceptible to non-rationalist thinking as anyone.

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Mark's avatar

I don't see any of the gedolim enlisting nowadays...

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H Wolofsky's avatar

These pix from the Peleg certainly don’t represent charadi Judaism … of r’ Auerbach zal

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