The Treachery Continues

The Charedi smear campaign against Israel to recruit the US Government and public to their cause

Recently, I reported on how Rabbi Dovid Hofstedter from Toronto arranged a meeting between Ambassador Mike Huckabee and the charedi leadership. They told him appalling lies about the enlistment of yeshiva students, that were duly repeated in Mishpacha magazine. Rabbi Hofstedter also wrote an article for a general American audience to argue in favor of charedim being exempt from army service, which likewise contained all kinds of falsehoods.

I have heard of many people in Toronto who are deeply upset with Rabbi Hofstedter as a result. But it turns out that Rabbi Hofstedter didn’t stop there. He also appeared on US television, likewise spreading lies about why Israel should not be drafting the 80,000 charedim who have not enlisted.

Among Hofstedter’s explicit lies are that a broad spectrum of people are against drafting charedim(!), and that it would mean abandoning Torah(!!). Among his implicit lies are that all the 80,000 charedim under discussion are actually learning Torah, and that there is no Torah in the Dati-Leumi community.

But Hofstedter is not alone in trying to recruit non-Jewish allies to the charedi cause and against the IDF, the justice system, and the general Israeli public. Yisrael Porush is the son of MK Meir Porush and chairman of Magen u’Moshia, the “Campaign against the Enlistment Decree,” whose logo features hands in handcuffs. He too appealed to Ambassador Huckabee to recruit the US Adminstration (who he apparently considers to be the real Magen u’Moshia):

Porush spreads the same explicit and implicit lies as the “Gedolim” and Hofstedter. There is no acknowledgement of the terrible crisis caused by the manpower shortage in the IDF. There is no acknowledgement of the over eighty hesder yeshivot (now including several charedi hesder yeshivos) which combine Torah study with army service. There is the terrible slander that yeshiva students are being imprisoned for the “sole offense” of their dedication to Torah study. And there is no acknowledgment that tens of thousands of these young men are not even learning Torah!

And it doesn’t end there. Three members of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Agudas Yisroel of America traveled to Washington, D.C. yesterday for a meeting with Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States. These were Rav Aharon Feldman, Rav Malkiel Kotler, and Rav Elya Brudny (who made it clear last year that he does not consider Dati-Leumi Jews to be religious).

Note that these “Gedolim” did not visit Washington at any point in the last two years of war on behalf of Israel, and all three opposed their communities traveling to Washington for the rally on behalf of Israel. They have also repeatedly insisted that “Torah and Tefillah” are the real weapons in the war. But apparently when it comes to their own personal wars, they do not rely on Torah and Tefillah and instead leave yeshiva in Elul to engage in hishtadlus.

According to the report, “The roshei yeshiva strongly emphasized that the Torah world in the United States stands shoulder to shoulder with Klal Yisroel in Eretz Yisroel, united in its commitment to safeguard the spiritual integrity of bnei Torah.”

But how dare they speak about standing shoulder to shoulder with “Klal Yisroel”?! The vast majority of Klal Yisroel, who are acutely aware of the enormous suffering of the reservists and their families due to the IDF manpower shortage, desperately wants charedim to enlist! Does “Klal Yisroel” only refer to charedim?!

As it happens, Ambassador Yechiel Leiter himself is a rabbi who learned in a hesder yeshiva, served in the IDF, and lost a son in this war who left behind a widow and six children. And so I trust that despite his smile for the camera, he inwardly regarded these “Gedolim,” who consider him and his fallen son to be not part of the religious Jewish community, to be not even part of Klal Yisroel, with the contempt that they deserve.

And is it really true that, as these “Gedolim” claim, the Torah world in the United States supports the blanket Israel charedi refusal for any of the 80,000 charedim to enlist - even all the tens of thousands of charedim who are not seriously learning or who are not learning at all? It’s true of the top rabbinic leadership, but is it true of a majority of people in the US yeshivish community?

Considering how many people from that community have written to me to tell me how disgusted they are by the charedi near-total opposition to helping with the war, I doubt it. It would be very beneficial if people who are part of that world and feel that these “Gedolim” are not correctly representing them would make that known. One way to do that would be to forward this post to others and state that they agree with it. And CC reception@agudah.org, along with inbox@mishpacha.com. Yes, it takes some bravery. But if we expect so many young men to be brave enough to risk their very lives on behalf of us, it’s the least we can do.