Shas-affiliated rabbis: IDF tempting yeshiva students
Rabbis warn that if draft law is passed, they will declare Haredi MKs 'are not our emissaries,' call on 'all the holy yeshiva students' not to report to military recruitment center.
Sephardic rabbis on Wednesday expressed their opposition to the proposed draft law which stipulates economic sanctions to be imposed on yeshivas that do not meet recruitment targets.
During an emergency meeting held in Jerusalem in spite of the party's opposition, the Shas-affiliated speakers said the IDF was placing "temptations" in order to "lure innocent yeshiva students into their network."
The event was held without any connection to the party of Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, but was attended by rabbis and senior yeshiva heads who are affiliated with the movement and have influence over its voters. Among the prominent names are the head of the prestigious ultra-Orthodox Yeshiva Porat Yosef, Rabbi Moshe Tzedaka, and the head of the Yakirei Jerusalem Yeshiva, Rabbi Yehuda Cohen.
The rabbis expressed "great anxiety" over what they described as "the continued harm to the Torah world and the constant attempts to recruit yeshiva students to the IDF." They argued that serving in the army was a "religious prohibition" of the category “better to die than to sin.”
They accused the authors of the proposal of surrendering to "the whims of the High Court of Justice and the haters of the Torah," and the army of employing "scoundrels" whose mission is to "hunt souls from the religious camp out of monetary greed.
"No young man or (married) yeshiva student, at any spiritual level, has the right to enlist God forbid for any track," the participants ruled. "Not to the army or to National or Civil Service."
The rabbis warned that an approval of the proposed bill would compel them to join the position of the more radical ultra-Orthodox factions such as the Jerusalem-based Lithuanian faction: "If, God forbid the law or part of it passes, we will call upon all the holy yeshiva students not to go to the recruitment office (i.e. not even for the purpose of receiving an exemption or deferment of service)."
They expressed "harsh protest and absolute opposition to all the details and sections of the draft law," and called on the ultra-Orthodox politicians not to give it even tacit approval. "Anyone who gives his hand to this law or part of it will be punished and the collar will hang on his neck," they warned.
Regarding ultra-Orthodox MKs (referring mainly to members of the Shas faction), they wrote that if they do not object clearly and absolutely to the law, "we will declare that they are not our emissaries and no authority should be given to them, and no excuse will be accepted (at the moment of truth)."
They concluded with a prayer for salvation from the Passover Haggadah: "In every generation (our enemies) stand up to destroy us and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hands."
