The Good, the Bad, and the Bizarre

A protest against an anti-IDF rally for Anglo charedim

Well, that was an experience. I just came back from the event for Anglo-charedim against special IDF charedi programs. I wasn’t inside for the presentation; instead, I was outside together with about ten people who were protesting, and getting involved in some very heated arguments. I have immense respect for those who came to protest and especially for the women who came and held signs and stood their ground, even in the face of aggressive men shouting in their faces. Here is what two of them had to say:

First, some good news: unlike the previous anti-enlistment event at that shul, which was packed, there was not a large turnout. It was about half to two-thirds full. And that included a lot of young teenagers (though that isn’t necessarily good news).

Now the bad news: there were a lot of people saying some really stupid and terrible things. Here is a taste of some the arguments that I personally got into:

One youngish man told me that his charedi friends who enlisted went totally off the derech and that’s why charedim can’t enlist. I asked if they went to Nachal Charedi, and he said yes. I pointed out that Nachal Charedi is for guys who are basically off the derech already, and you cannot compare it to serious hesder frameworks. He didn’t care.

Another person insisted to me that the entire goal of the army is to make people secular. I challenged him with R. Dovid Leibel’s Chashmonaim, R. Karmi Gross’s Derech Chaim. He dismissed them as an insignificant minority. I said, so why not be part of that? He didn’t respond.

Another man, to whom I lamented that the young men in our community have to spend so much time away from yeshiva and jobs and family because there’s just not enough soldiers, expressed sympathy that I (perhaps mistakenly) took as genuine, and said that his community has the same problem: there’s just not enough people in yeshiva full-time! I pointed out to him that there’s vastly more people in yeshiva today than at any point in history. He didn’t care.

At one point I said to some people who were insisting that Torah protects as follows: Imagine if a terrorist came right now, chas v’shalom, and there was a soldier up the street. Would you run to the soldier or to Rav Aharon Feldman? One man responded “To Rav Feldman!” and a few people laughed at this obvious lie. Another man responded that true, he would run to the soldier, but the reason why there was no terrorist attack happening was because of Rav Feldman!

Numerous people, especially the younger ones, insisted to me that it’s Torah that actually protects. I asked them why they nevertheless engage in full hishtadlus in every other area of life.

Someone else insisted to me that the only reason that there is need for an army is that there is a State of Israel; if it didn’t exist, Jews would live here in peace with the Arabs, just as they did before Zionism. I pointed out that you can’t compare the miniscule numbers of Jews who lived here then, among Arabs who had no political ambitions, with the millions of Jews who needed a place to live when Europe turned into a slaughterhouse, and there was no way that the Arabs were going to allow that. He dismissed me.

A few guys, who realized who I was, yelled at me that they’re not interested in anything that I have to say, that I’m a terrible person etc. I heard some Israeli guy muttering on his phone to someone about “Nosson Pliskin.” Whatever.

One guy challenged me: “Are you a Zionist?!” Much to his surprise, I said “No! I just want the Jewish People to be able to live here! I just want my kids to be able to live their lives and not have to spend a quarter of the year in reserve duty because of the manpower shortage!”

Some people were yelling at the women who stood inside the shul that they are breaking the law and trespassing on private property. In fact it was a public event in a public institution, and thus it was totally legal for them to be there. What was actually illegal was the event itself! It is against the law in Israel to discourage people from enlisting, a crime that carries a multi-year sentence, but which unfortunately the government does not enforce.

A number of people insisted on harping on totally irrelevant points. One guy would talk about nothing other than about how the fact that I was chatting with some of the women protesting meant that I go against Chazal’s directive that one should not talk excessively with women. I saw a few others arguing that one of protestors was wearing a t-shirt and was clearly not a serious ben Torah and thus his arguments had no merit.

One particularly bizarre thing that I heard from several people was that there should not be an army, and/or that nobody should enlist because the government is secular, and/or because it directs the army badly. I pointed out that the very rabbonim speaking at this event ordered everyone to vote for this government, and that the charedi MKs themselves voted for all the government’s war decisions, including increasing the draft requirements for dati young men. They didn’t care.

In the next post, I will discuss what the speakers said in detail. For now I just want to draw attention to one very significant thing that Rav Aharon Feldman said, after his endless slander about “Zionists” and charedi army units.

Despite all the charedi attendees who insisted to me that there shouldn’t be an army, that the army does nothing, that it’s really Torah that protects, etc., Rav Feldman himself eventually explicitly acknowledged that the army does indeed perform the important job of actually saving lives! (It’s so bizarre that the Gedolim’s alleged devotees don’t even care for what they actually say.) It’s at the end of this segment:

His position, however, was that “we can’t sacrifice our childrens’ souls, even to save the lives of others.” To which there are two responses to be made. First of all, the idea that serving in the IDF necessarily or even likely involves sacrificing one’s soul is simply nonsense, especially in light of the new charedi hesder frameworks. Yes, there are some challenges, but that does not exempt one from helping save lives - the Torah itself, with mitzvos such as yefat toar, acknowledges that war brings challenges.

But second, there is an admission here that they are forcing others to pay a higher price - greatly increasing the strain and risk to their parnasa, their marriages, their family lives, their emotional and physical health, and even their very lives, not to mention their Torah learning and ruchniyos too. What gives charedim the right to force others to pay a higher price, simply because they don’t want to pay theirs? And how are they going to make up for it? At the very least, they should be materially supporting those who they force to sacrifice so much on their behalf - and not the reverse.