"Everyone knows that forcibly recruiting haredim is not possible. I'm not going to lie – we are thinking of what the future may hold – but we believe the Torah protects the people of Israel, us included. I'm certain that if you interview me at this time next year, we will still be studying. I’m not changing any of my plans.…People like to accuse the haredim of mocking the seculars and soldiers, but we respect them. After all, they protect us. But our studies also have value. It all stems from ignorance and hatred for the ultra-Orthodox."
Haredim Say They Don’t Have To Worry About The Draft
“We won’t be dragged into the army,” one yeshiva student said.
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
The Tal Law, which allows Israel’s haredim to evade the military draft and which was ruled unconstitutional in February by Israel’s High Court of Justice, expires Wednesday.
Even so, haredim don’t believe they will be drafted or, if they are, that they will be forced to actually serve in the Israel’s Defense Forces.
"Past experience has taught us that even when the Tal Law expires on August 1, we won't be dragged into the army," a haredi yeshiva student told Ynet yesterday.
"Everyone knows that forcibly recruiting haredim is not possible," Elad resident Yitzhak Burstein, who studies at a yeshiva in Bnei Brak, told Ynet. "I'm not going to lie – we are thinking of what the future may hold – but we believe the Torah protects the people of Israel, us included. I'm certain that if you interview me at this time next year, we will still be studying. I’m not changing any of my plans.…People like to accuse the haredim of mocking the seculars and soldiers, but we respect them. After all, they protect us. But our studies also have value. It all stems from ignorance and hatred for the ultra-Orthodox."
"We would rather go to prison [than serve in the IDF],” another hared man told Ynet. “When they threatened the parents in Emanuel [over illegal ethnic segregation in state-funded haredi schools] with jail time they thought it would break their spirits, but it didn’t help. This whole debate has an anti-Semitic feel to it. If you really want to integrate us into society, stop disparaging us and making up stories that taint our image. We are Jews who study the Torah. This has been revered throughout the generations; only in the State of Israel it is not appreciated."
A 22-year-old married haredi man mocked the proposed haredi draft. “Can you picture any [haredim] training for the army? They want us to enlist but they are not setting up any special units for us. How will I go to the army now with two children at home? Who will benefit from it? Even if haredim are eventually recruited, the authorities will quickly find that it is costing the state more, so I'm not concerned. The Plesner Committee [formed to draft a replacement for the Tal Law that would pass constitutional muster] failed, and so will the others. It's all in the hands of God."
The Plesner Committee was disbanded by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hours before it was to issue findings that called for a universal draft and for civil and criminal penalties – including financial penalties – for draft dodgers.
Netanyahu, who depends on haredi political parties for the support that keeps his ruling coalition government in power, then formed another committee, this one co-headed by Plesner, who is a member of the Kadima political party, and by Moshe Ya’alon, a former IDF chief-of-staff who is a Likud Party member and a Netanyahu crony.
Netanyhu told the new committee just before it was to release its compromise findings that he would reject almost all of them, and that he wanted all haredi yeshiva students to be automatically exempt from IDF service until they reach the age of 26. Because the vast majority of haredim are married and have several children by that age, haredim drafted at that age would be unlikely to see combat. They would also be paid significantly more money than secular and Zionist Orthodox soldiers and would have to receive other benefits that would, in effect, turn their ‘army service’ into paid, full time yeshiva study.
Plesner resigned as a result of Netanyahu’s interference and issued a statement blasting Netanyahu for selling out to haredim.
Ya’alon then released his own findings which called for haredim to be drafted at age 26 (or later) into special haredi battalions in which they would study Torah for at least 45 hours per week while being paid by the state.