Dozens of extremist Haredim blocked the major Highway 1 near Jerusalem overnight Thursday into Friday following the arrest of a draft dodger. Traffic delays were reported at the scene, and after about an hour police dispersed the protesters with stun grenades and reopened the road.
Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch, who leads the Lithuanian Haredi public alongside Rabbi Dov Lando, said Thursday night at the Union of Yeshiva Students conference in Jerusalem that “we are truly at war — and sacrifices must be made for the war. I am not talking about the war in Iran, but about the war of those among us who are fighting us.”
Haredi protesters block Highway 1
(Video: Mordechai Peretz)
Police disperse Haredi protesters blocking Highway 1 using stun grenades
(Video: Article 27A)
2 View gallery
Police disperse Haredi protesters blocking Highway 1 using stun grenades
(Photo: Article 27A)
Hirsch added that: “We have no way out of this situation, unless there is special divine assistance. We need to instill in the young men the feeling that we can win this war through the Holy One, blessed be He.”
Regarding the draft exemption law advanced by the government, which Hirsch was previously recorded as acknowledging would not lead any Haredim to enlist, he said: “They wanted a law in which 50% [of Haredi young men] would go to the army. That would not happen. They want to destroy the Torah world, and we need to go to war over this.”
2 View gallery
Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch: 'I am not talking about the war in Iran, but about the war of those among us who are fighting us'
Knesset lawmaker Yaakov Asher of United Torah Judaism also spoke at the conference. “This war is a religious war, but we will not become phalanges — we will follow exactly the path that the great sages of Israel instruct us to take,” he said.
Talks to pass the law stopped after two years of discussions, after Hirsch expressed displeasure with amendments by the legal advisers to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, which demanded tougher sanctions, higher enlistment targets and stricter oversight.
Later, the older co-leader of the Lithuanian Haredi public, Lando, instructed lawmakers to support dissolving the Knesset because he no longer believed Netanyahu could pass the law.