Haredim who oppose the IDF draft and came out to protest the arrest of a Haredi draft dodger blocked the main throughfare Route 4 near Bnei Brak during the Wednesday afternoon rush hour. They sat down on the road, some wearing yellow patches bearing the word “Haredi” - meant to evoke the yellow star Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust - and chanted, “We will die and not enlist,” “To prison and not to the army” and “The army is worse than death.” They appeared to be trying to trample on the memory of both the Holocaust and of soldiers who fell defending the state of Israel.
The protesters also shouted “shiksa” - a pergorative to describe a non-Jewish woman - at a female motorcyclist who happened to be there as police tried to clear space for her to pass.
Haredi demonstration on Highway4
(Video: Mickey Schmidt)
Police work to disperse the demonstration on Highway 4
(Video: Israel Police spokesperson)
Leib Cohen, one of the protesters, told ynet that the yellow patch “is meant to express one thing — as far as we are concerned, we are the Jewish people, the Torah, the commandments. Any attempt to uproot the Jewish people from its symbols — by the Zionist State of Israel, which set a goal of building here a nation that supposedly represents Judaism. To destroy the world of Torah and faith, that is what this is. No less than the Germans. Without Torah and faith, death is preferable to us. This war will certainly end in total failure for the State of Israel.”
The yellow star reads 'Haredi'
(Photo: Mickey Schmidt)
Another protester, Azriel Buchner, added: “For a Jew, there are things more important than life, and all the secular people should understand that. During the Crusades, thousands of Jews were murdered because they did not want to convert. Faith is more important than life. It is better to die at the hands of a Nazi than to be in the army and become secular. That is the pure truth. That is what the struggle is about, and we will not compromise.”
The protest was announced in the morning, when it was reported that the protest would be over the arrest of a Haredi draft dodger, after about three weeks without such arrests. Police said they were preparing for traffic congestion from the Aluf Sadeh interchange to the Em Hamoshavot interchange, as well as on Jabotinsky Street in Bnei Brak.
Police declared the demonstration illegal before using force to disperse it.
(Photo: Mickey Schmidt)
According to Knesset member Moshe Abutbul of the Haredi Shas Party, the arrested man is a yeshiva student who was summoned to give testimony at Lahav 433 in order to provide his version in a fraud case. At the end of his testimony, according to the lawmaker, a police officer accompanied him to the parking lot and transferred him to the Military Police. But police sources said he was a suspect summoned for questioning over involvement in another case, and after the interrogation ended, when it became clear he was absent without leave, he was transferred to the Military Police. According to them, had he been a crime victim who came to give testimony, he would not have been transferred to the IDF.
The coalition passed a law protecting draft dodgers from arrest until the election, but the Supreme Court blocked it with an interim order. Still, because the IDF lacks the tools to carry out arrests, police do not assist and crowds often gather to attack military police officers during arrests in Haredi neighborhoods. The result is that very few Haredi draft dodgers are arrested in Israel.