What does it have to do with convenience? I asked. What about A. B. Yehoshua and Amnon Dankner? Koby Oz, Shlomo Artzi, and Yaron London? What about all the members of the media, the artists, the authors, and the poets; why don’t you invite them?

The IDF is becoming more observant and will soon be the majority. This a great thing...the Rabbi's are wise and great people.

Your leftist friends only will do it for money! They dont care about ISrael. only themselves! But i suspect you knew this answer already Yair. So whats the point of this article you were trying to put out Yair? Seems half finished!

The Zionist Rabbis believe it is an honor and privilege to be asked to address Israel's finest - young men in officer's course - and will travel any distance to help them out. Unfortunately, the cultural elite too often view our finest today as a source of shame. Thank you Yair Lapid for retaining your Zionist values!

the rabbis have more meaningful thoughts to share--the elites are just that...what can elites teach soldiers that will explain why israel has always had to fight and why they can win and why it is not alone? the soldiers and rabbis are the elite!

B"H Maybe it's not the "distance" that matters Yair.. Maybe A. B. Yehoshua, Amnon Dankner, Koby Oz, Shlomo Artzi and Yaron London have nothing to add. Maybe they run out of lies, maybe they run out of steam. Have you thought about this? It also is interesting that you, Yair Lapid, list yourself and members of the media, the artists, the authors, and the poets as "Israel’s cultural elite" that I assume has to be secular. religious is per definition "stupid" for you and so, religious Jews cannot, again per definition be described by you as "Israel's cultural elite". Well, let me break you the sour news: you are not and they are not either "cultural" or "elite". They may be Israel's. That's where it ends these days Yair. Thank G-d. The people you are referring to may describe themselves at best "Zionists", if they are not post-Zionists. They don't only ignore but reject anything that is Jewish, (a category that includes Zionism whereas Zionism excludes Judaism) by idol-worshipping state and army. So yes, it is a losing battle for you and for them and, with Hashem's help, a winning battle for Jewish Jews and the Jewish people. It depends on where you are looking reality from. From Hashem's side or from the Hellenists side.

why? all those you named belong to the "angry" left that seem to be "angry" because israel has a defense army who actually defend us. all they want is to unite the poor palestines with the high and mighty Israel who ,maybe,has been shooting itself in sderot and the negev just playing !!!palestines want peace ,the poor darlings/don't believe me? ask mr daniel baremboin

So perhaps those that are called by the camp commander so often and who dont bother coming are not so "Culturally Elite" after all? Perhaps they are mostly self serving fools who prefer to pontificate to other fools but when faced with real men who may even have to die in the course of their duties, perhaps they know deep down the shallowness of their arguments when facing soldiers who may not readily view them as demi gods. PS. I also agree this reads like half an article. Care to elaborate what you talked about and what the Rabbis talked about and the response by the audience? I suspect however it were the rabbis who offered them real strength, courage and faith in their current positions. Am I wrong?

and not one of you pointed out...these protestors in the article were christian arabs and thats to show you dont have to be a muslim arab to find any excuse to protest against jews or Israel. Suffecient to be arab to protest on anything no matter how trivial and play the victim card. PS. christianity is such a load of baloney I cant see how any intelligent christian cant research for themselves to see how much of it was made up based on paganism of the time coupled with the roman need of a man god. Truly its idolatrous and its followers mosly blind out of choice. If he existed at all he was most likely a happily married man with children who is buried beneath a housing estate in Talpiot with the rest of his family as depicted in Simcha Jocobowicz's documentary. Get real and besides nothing to apologise for.

Thank G'd that we are seeing a dwindeling down off our moral arrogant calling itself elite. It is always good to see someone like Lapid ,show his true colors. These so-called elitists have always pretended to be for the underdog or the underpriviliged , but that was just a front to hide their tue arrogance , inflated ego's and worship off their Hedonistic lifestyles. Not that Lapid wants to know this , but almost 40% off the officers course graduates are from religious families. The good thing about our self appointed elitists is that in their egoism and selfishness , they forgot to educate their offspring , to care about anything else besides themselves, giving us the chance to start taking over. Our elitists lost touch a long time ago , because reality is to far away for them.

What else can you conclude? Title is so good A losing battle, let me put an elipse A LOST BATTLE.

Of all the people mentioned by Yair Lapid, how come there are no professors in the fields of humanities, social sciences, natural sciences or researchers and writers in think tanks? Are only authors, TV personalities and celebrities considered the elite? I'll take the rabbis any time.

It seems pretty clear that the ones who care most about the people, the nation and the land are those who understand what they are doing here as a jewish nation and take their jewish identity seriously. I would love to see some more caring secular "scholars" caring about the nation of israel caring about the jewish people as a whole caring about our jewish homeland but my fear is that they have no reason to care about those things. they care about lots of other things but they do not take judaism seriously enough to care... please prove me wrong-

Yair, you come from a family which understands its duty to the country and the desire to "give back", most of Israels stars do not. Sad but true. Most stars and media persons will only talk to soldiers if there is a photo op.... just look at Bar Rafaeli, wouldn't be seen dead at an IDF camp!!!!

Leftist looneys have nothing to say to society, yes, they are entrenched, sponsored by the elites, including this medium, but they are a moribund breed - and good riddance to them, they've caused enough problems.

...main problem: they have too much time on their hands, so they create problems that don't exist - for nothing is as sexy in journalism as creating the illusion of the existence of problems to instill fear in the public. On one hand Yair Lapid like many Israeli journalists poses to be a "liberal" person - but liberalism embraces tolerance of many views and lifestyles. And John Stuart Mill said that everybody should be allowed to do what they wish as long as they do not infringe upon other people's rights. What about it that the speakers are rabbis? There are priests in the US army. Do 300 million Americans whine all day long over differences in lifestyle between religious and non religious people? No, they don't. The problem with many Jews/Israelis in this country is that they are so got damn opinionated about everything. As long as people are ethnic Israelis/Jews, Israeli patriots and nationalists and honor our past, present and future and our identity and our moral, intellectual, spiritual well being and strengthening our country demographically, territorially, militarily, economically, scientifically and technologically and fulfill our future dreams, values and ambitions - what's the problem? And who gives a rat's ass if they are religious or atheists?

They can spot a cafe that has great cappuchino from a long distance? The vast majority of the world and I'm talking about 99% would have no idea who any of these people are. A. B. Yehoshua and Amnon Dankner? Koby Oz, Shlomo Artzi, and Yaron London. I have heard of one of them and never read anything that he wrote. Mike

Soooo the Israeli media big shots won't come to offer support to the soldiers who defend them. This is a statement that most are choosing to ignore. A huge statement indeed!!!

... we national religous care for the country and you secular's do to, but secularitie's ideology comes at the end always down to egoism and you just don't have the feeling of collective responsiblity and ideology from another source (god) as we have and so (although there are good exceptions as you) by passing generations secular's interest in the country lessens, in themselves grows, since resonsibility, sociality and values have to teached and learned in every generation and don't come with the genes. And somethings at the end: we religious define ourselve by positive values (we want x, we want y), seculars don't, they only know what they don't want and thus they have no real message to deliver.

lapid should know that elites are usually self serving. he grew in a household of elites, surrounded by elite friends and kin. as a talk show host, he was daily involved in helping them plug themselves and their wares. f or the life of me i cannot understand the pretense at surprise. artists (and i use the word loosely) consider their art - work. they make a living off of it. the rest of their time is spent - like "normal people" - doing normal things. when called upon to do other stuff, they consider it, too, work, and they expect to be remunerated either directly or through more sales. just because they're artists doesn't mean that they're better people than your average hack or businessman. it's just that in israel, where they feel the need to take advantage of their fame in order to let off their mastubatory political steam, there's an illusion that they actually give a s***t. but it's an illusion. most of them are true s***ts. they'll scream like madwomen at their teleprompter operators, treat their staff like s*** using an excuse as lame as "i'm about to go on, i'm nervous." rabbis do not see their work as work but as a shlihut. it has no bounds (and i dont know if this is a good thing). but i am guilty of generalizations. there are lots of professors out there taking part in things like bashaar and other endeavors for free. there are many rabbis who would have nothing to do with the military (or anything else zionist). there are some truly well-souled individuals who have somehow managed to climb the rungs of inobscurity.

Look at the following people who endorse Barak Hussein Obama or have been very close to Obama: 1) Kaddafi of Libya 2) The leaders of the Hamas terror group 3) Anti Israel radical Jimmy Carter 4) Anti Semite Zeignew Brzezinski (head of his foreign policy advisory committee) 5) Louis Farrakhan (Obama called him a great leader and has had numerous cordial meetings with him). 7) Anti Semitic Pastor Wright (his pastor and "spiritual mentor for 20 years"). 8) Pat Buchanan - stated "I agree with Obama`s Middle Eastern policy". 9) Self hating Jewish Anti-Semite George Soros (funded his entire campaign through Move On. ORG) 10) Communist dictator and Anti Semitic leader of Venezuela Chavez 11) Weatherman terrorist bombers 12) Chicago gangsters who purchased his mansion for him 13) Anti-Semite Sharpy Sharpton 14) Anti Israel radical leftists of the Answer movement 15) Iranian Nazi like government which will be invited to the White House with "no preconditions`` by Barak Hussein Obama. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE EITHER BRAIN DEAD TO VOTE FOR OBAMA OR ALTERNATIVELY YOU HAVE GOT TO NOT CARE AT ALL ABOUT AMERICA`S or ISRAEL`S FUTURE. DON`T YOU REALIZE THAT THE OBAMA WANTS TO INVITE THE IRANIAN NAZI HOLOCAUST DENIER AND NUCLEAR BOMB MADMAN TO THE WHITE HOUSE? DON`T YOU REALIZE THAT HE HAS STATED THAT: "HAMAS AND HEZBOLLAH HAVE VERY LEGITIMATE ISSUES TO RAISE" DON`T YOU REALIZE THAT EVERY SINGLE ARAB AMERICAN GROUP ENDORSES HIM BECAUSE HE BELIEVES IN "a more even handed approach to Israel". Furthermore Obama will do nothing to save the Global economic downturn except to raise taxes on the middle class to fund wasteful poverty programs for minorities. No president can change global economic cycles. Oh and by the way what about the hundreds of thousands of dollars that Obama got as bribes from Fannie Mae (which caused this whole crises to begin with). My friend, this guy is not a "Democrat` he is a radical anti-Israel Communist who is slightly to the left of Joe Stalin. Furthermore he makes wonderful speeches but he has zero executive experience. in fact he has almost no experience at all. the only "change" he will bring will be a "change in his story (like he did on the United Jerusalem issue). How does a lying Anti Israel one term senator and Anti American radical compare to a war hero like McCain who by the way Bush hates because he is a maverick like Theodore Roosevelt was in going against corporate corruption. Need I remind you that the last person to be elected because people thought that he could stop a global economic downturn was in 1932 and his name was Adolph Hitler (who by the way was also a wonderful speaker and loved by the German media which brainwashed the German public). A public service message from: WWW.AMERICANJEWSAGAINSTOBAMA.BLOGSPOT.COM Please forward this email to 10 of your friends to warn them about how bad Barak Hussein Obama really is.

I bet your country has a lot of good advice regarding war crimes. I mean you did commit a genocide against the Armenians (1-1.5 million people murdered) you have been denying the Kurds autonomy and bombing the hell out of them for decades, and you did ethnically cleanse North Cyprus of all Greeks. Meanwhile we fight for our survival against an implacable enemy, and of course we get the blame. I always get a good laugh when the Turks claim to have any morals.

rabi thinks they say what god had said but writers say what they want to say and think that people will search for them .haha but people trust god and rabi more than the idiotic writers

Dear tommy, it is an old story of, about, it is not a question of if , but when...some im sure, messianic type {of course} rebbehs...or maybe even ome typical underwear shopping shenkin street frecha, turns you...& you get bitten by the heavy duty chozeck b'tshuva bug, & become frum...anyway why are you so suprized...that the average majority of secular israelis, are typical arsim zevel zionists...who whn push comes to shove dont give a rats ass about doing any rea! local hasbara, the the idiot defence forces...who are so desperate for any attention, that they are willing to give the bully pulpit to any screwball rabbi, desperate for anyone who is willing to listen to thier comedy central like shpei! this is absolute proof that local typical israelis are scum & do not care to even be nice enough to & give a few moments of thier time to the few officers & young soldier people who all give thier all & go all the way everyday & whos life is really on the line 24/7...obviously this is a good sign because...anyway it is just a matter of time before this transends into the the mosdos snuering rabunim eventually calling the shots & getting the generals to swear thier alliegience to them complete control...just like in the time of eliyahu hanuvee in regards to the great biblical story about jezebel...let this be a good lesson & simon...trust history because it always seems to repeats itself...& please do not respond or call me about this...

The religious Zionists are the elite of the Jewish People.

Yes, but the reality is, GAZA IS NOT FAR ENOUGH FOR THEM AND THEY WOULD GO THERE IN A MINUTE IF ASKED TO SPEAK. But who in his right mind would want to listen to what egoist Israeli leftists have to say anyway? They can tell you about the best wines and the best places to shop. I doubt anyone in Gaza City is interested.