Auerbach’s newspaper HaPeles reported that Auerbach told them to
announce in his name that because the government’s decision to draft
haredi yeshiva students is a “gezeirat shmad [a decree of forced
conversion from Judaism to another religion or to atheism]” and an
“uprooting” of Judaism, haredi yeshiva students should not answer draft
notices and report to recruitment processing centers at all.
Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach
Leading Haredi Rabbi Orders Yeshiva Students To Ignore Draft Notices
Shmarya Rosenberg • Failedmessiah.com
Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, the Jerusalem-based non-hasidic senior haredi rabbi who unsuccessfully challenged Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman for haredi leadership after the death last year of former haredi hed Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, continues to mount a separate campaign against the recruitment of haredi yeshiva students in opposition to Shteinman’s Council of Torah Sages, the haredi news website Behadrei Haredim reports.
Auerbach’s newspaper HaPeles reported that Auerbach told them to announce in his name that because the government’s decision to draft haredi yeshiva students is a “gezeirat shmad [a decree of forced conversion from Judaism to another religion or to atheism]” and an “uprooting” of Judaism, haredi yeshiva students should not answer draft notices and report to recruitment processing centers at all.
The Shteinman-led Council of Torah Sages already ordered haredi yeshiva students to report to a recruitment center if they are summoned, but cautioned the students to refuse to sign any documents the military recruiters give them. Instead, the Council’s affiliated umbrella organization for haredi yeshivas has centers set up to help students fill out the forms they are given or to replace those forms with haredi-rabbi-approved versions as the need arises. The rabbi-approved forms state that the yeshiva student in question studies Torah full-time as his profession, and declare that the student will under no circumstances stop full-time Torah study to serve in Israel’s military or in national civil service.
Auerbach has tried to stake out his own territory and distinguish himself from Shteinman by adopting positions slightly to Shteinman’s right.