Yishai and co should learn the word "sacrifice" which is often mentioned in the Torah, they want to have the pleasure of learning Torah without wanting to make the sacrifices towards that goal. It comes over as childish behavior, were they demand their cake. Besides that each Jew was supposed to contibute 1/2 a Shekel towards the beth Hamikdash, symbolizing that every one had an equal burden to share. It is high time that everyone works and contributes towards the society as a whole, this will not shut down any Yeshivot , but will lead to shared responsebilities.

There are many things they can help in the army or doing social services. Haredim and Arabs must give something to the country and not just take from it. If they do not want to help they can not ask for anything in return. Everybody is equal and if you want to feel equal contribute as well.

The IDF is trying to cut down on manpower us more machines to save money. The last thing they want is to have to create new units so they can incorporate thousands of haredim. The secular public might want it but the IDF ( the ones who matter ) do not want them especially in a time of budget cuts. Having soldiers just because the secular public want new soldiers not only doesn't win wars but it helps loose them because the limited budget is being spent on the wrong things. What is a better investment for an army a bunch of haredi the IDF doesn't need or a new fighter jet? Yishai motive for this statement might not be what do the IDF want but what he says is the truth and for the sake of politics and satisfying the anti hared mob we are going to force the IDF to absorb thousands of haredi they do not want.

The army does not get to decide anything. That is for the civilians. The army in the US did not want african-americans either but the civilians decided, not the army. The secular have been pleading with the Haredi to do something for years - goals were set, laws were passed, a Haredi framework was set up in the army and the response? Virually Nothing. No targets met. What does Yishai expect? As someone who learned with the Haredi I can only say this: had they merely kicked out the slackers, really kicked them out not just promised to do something about them but actually already removed them from Yeshiva, just the non-learners, no one would be asking for a draft because there would be thousands in the IDF. And all scholars still in Yeshivah studying. The fact that the Haredi do not do this is evidence of bad faith.

Just stick one Haredi in with a sguad of non-haredi IDF in training and collectively punish the group when the Haredi tries to disrupt the training. We'll see how long his or her disruptions last.

must be exempt from army. All made up by yeshiva heads (getting good money per head) in Israel only in the last few decades. Unheard of before this. Time for Heredim to start DOING Torah, not just reading it. Actually reading it accurately is a good start.

it might be a good idea to induct the haredi in a civilian national service role . having seen them for a long time , most of them are hardly physically able to withstand IDF combat duty .

IDF may not want,but Israelis want!

no other Israeli should be drafted. Or all,or nobody. If this putz want kosher food,so be it kosher food to everybody. They are not better than anybody.Actually these are not even Jews,I´m afraid to realize.

That's correct,neither does anyone else. Bye.

This is the first step in the salvation of the Haridim.

Yishai and his ilk are an abomination. Enough said...they disjust me to the core. I am the one who doesnt sleep a wink worrying about the welfare of my son, while his precious schnorrishe yeshiva petz grow fat from kiegel and chutzpah. Who the hell is protecting your fat asses, but the real frunmmies like my younger kid? YishaI AND THE SHAS DRECK DISJUST ME.

Imagine if they give a Haredi inductee a civilian task that would otherwise go to a salaried employee. You get unemployment. The only real solution is Yaalon's. Give them a draft exemption and don't prevent them from working. Let the IDF plan it's manpower and soon enough everything will work out.

This is a democracy, NOT an ecclesiocracy NOR a stratocracy. #13 - Kol ha-kavod, and even more so to your son. May ha-Sheim keep him, and all of our soldiers, safe.

Of course Yishai is familiar with rifts. His party causes those rifts - they call Bennett a non-Jew and then worry about rifts? Yishai, swallow your opride, dont just talk about healing and about how you understand the secular public, DO something. Make a concrete offer - every year it is the same thing, the same "target" and " we cannot force it" and "Haredi society is changing" and "we know we must do something" andblah blah blah and every year, it gets worse and people are sick of it.

During the time of Moses, Israel's Special Forces were the Haredim. When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments and found the people bowing to a cow idol, Moses' Special Forces-the Levites took care of business to cleanse the place of idol worshippers.

#6: "Time for Haredim to start DOING Torah, not just reading it." Agree. As I've mentioned previously, the Haredim are disobeying Torah. WORK was put in place by G-d as far back as Eden. They now receive MONEY which is the translation of work of other men (and women). They are thieves. They are stealing. It's as simple as that. Torah does not support theft, and yet they are SO comfortable with it. They are giving Jews a bad name with their disobedience and bad example. Also is the problem with their physical, social, emotional, and intellectual retardation, coming from an insular society. Small teams, of friends, on work projects where they can actually BUILD something, learn to build, plant, paint, construct, design, cooking, do accounting, care for others--the possibilities are endless to make them respectable once again. I agree about not putting them in the military. I thought that was a good idea based on fairness, but when one actually considers it--WHY put the burden on the IDF? That is insanity. These men (and women) can hardly function. Put them in training programs with stipend, and when they've been through the program, stipend goes away. The country doesn't need a million "Torah Scholars." There are only about 1-3 percent that would even come close to qualifying. The rest are freeloading THIEVES who dishonor Torah, as well as the Jewish People and the very place they live. No more free ride.

I read your comment and have to say that you are the real putz...even worse. One of the least intelligent comments ever posted on Ynet. If the army doesn't need the haredim, if in fact bringing them in burdens the army and weakens it...who the hell cares what people like you want. You don't even live in Israel. Life is hard and it is even harder when you are stupid!

if Yishai thinks that they can bring up a new generation of religious parasites that contribute nothing to this country, then he is very much mistaken, the hard working people of this country have had enough of funding this so called life style of theirs, we pay taxes, we work we serve in the army yet they have more rights than all of us, time Israel seperates state from religion and cut their benefits and funding of these so called yeshivot, and as we know by now they invent false registers just to milk the state dry, Eli Yishai and shas are nothing more than a bunch of criminals and deserve to be treated as such

Israel will be pushed around like a feather in the wind by the nations . prior to the first entry into the land of milk and honey ...Joshua had all his men of fighting age circumcised ....and in all their battles when the spoke with one voice with G-ds guidance ...they won those battles ...when they didn't listen to God they lost.... just a thought

Are the ones who are learning all day and doing mitsvot for the whole Jewish population, while people are eating pork and losing every shred of Jewish identity they have. There is no point of having the haredim in the army when it has worked like this so far. If its not broken, don't fix it. And for the aid they get, its very little and changing it will not give you any change in your quality of life. Ignorant people just looking for a scapegoat, and there is no better scapegoat than haredim and ultra religious because we know they have always been prosecuted the most by outsiders.

spouting off a load of rubbish. what Yesh Atid and Beit Hayehdi say is that everyone, without exception at age 18 present themselves to the IDF and the IDF decides not you or any one else or some Haradi Rav, whether the individual will be enlisted or will be required to do National Service. PERIOD So what you have written is complete nonsense!

I shouldn´t answer you just for your tone-you are not Yishay to whom I directed my words-,but I will. There is something called Justice and if one haredi man have the right to be exempted from the army,there is another secular jewish man who also have.Haredi blood is not better blood than any other Jew. Haredim are way too much spoiled.If the army can not provide them all the halachic luxury they desire,they can bring their food from their houses. I am the daughter of imigrants who almost didn´t have what to eat for certain periods and they managed,and actually my mother became an excellent cook,full of creativity,as many other Jews were obliged to learn to be. Now,who is the stupid one,eli?

Yishai and the Haredim literally believe that have 10,000s Haredi reading a book all day (intnetionally misinterpreting it btw), receiving welfare, and not serving OR joining the labor force will cause God to use his magic powers and bless the nation. In fact they believe that their Torah studies are responsible for the victory in 1967 and 1973 and EVERY good thing that ever happened to Israel. How do you deal with someone who thinks like that? You don't. You can't drag them into the 21st century but you can stop using tax dollars to fund them.

...to protect israel and the haredim! While the haredim did hide in the yeshivot! SHAME!

Better idea Instead of national service make them go on compulsory work experience courses. Teach them job skills and then they really will be contributing to society whilst sticking them in an army that doesn't want or need them lets the public see them running around in a green uniform rather than their shtrimals but how does society benefit from it? Give them an option of work experience courses or the army I think they will go with work experience. Once they learn employment skills we can then try find practical jobs for they can do and if they are made say 3 offers and they turn them all down then they ail automatically be drafted.

Please do not insult us. Anyone who has learned in Haredi Yeshivot knows that a large percentage is not learning at all, much less learning all day. They are smoking, they are wasting time, they are doing nonsense. And this is not to denigrate them. Learning all day week after week is for a special few but everyone? That is not human nature. Everyone does not study physics at the Weizmann institute either. Yeshivah is just an excuse to keep people out of the army. And, by the way, the word is "persecuted". "Prosecuted" is what the law does when charges are brought like when you cheat and steal from the government or hire illegal aliens or molest children, something else happening quite a bit in Haredi society in the US today. Maybe that is why you are thinking of the word.

No exemptions, no nothing. haredi all over the world are the same, very knowledgeable, generally unable to defend themselves in fact being too defensive, all identified by garb- this stereotype transfer to all jews. The israeli idf sabra has done much to dispel the steretype but not the haredi who invites it. What is missing?-physical self reliance in all matters. deri, yishai and lapid are all wrong in degrees, no exemptions not even for top scholars. they all have to do army service or some service and that is it. Yishas's comments about the idf are worthless and deri as merridor says has no buiness being in the knesset with his past.