Is a Jewish kid in Brooklyn, or Chicago, or Beverly Hills less Jewish than my kids are? Is the Land of Israel less of a homeland for American Jews than it is for Israelis? Why should we, the Israelis, be the ones to fight the enemies of Israel, and not Diaspora Jews as well?

If you answer, “Because I’m an America citizen,” that doesn’t cut the cake. I’m an America citizen too, but I served in the IDF. The fact that a Jew is a United States citizen, or a German citizen, or a citizen of Zululand, is merely a technicality. So what if you have a U.S. passport? If you move to England, you can become a citizen of England, and from there, you can move to Switzerland and get a Swiss passport too. It’s all just an administrative technicality. A Jew is a Jew. That’s what the Nazis taught us. Whether a Jew was a German, or a Pole, or a Rumanian, or a Hungarian, they were all herded onto trains for the ovens.

Let me try to explain something, please. In this week’s Torah portion, as we receive the Torah at Mount Sinai, we are “like one man with one heart.” At Sinai, we didn’t only receive the Torah, we received a national Israelite soul that made us, and our descendants forever after us, a part of the Israelite Nation. The Jewish People aren’t like other people in the world. Yes, we all have eyes and ears and legs, but whereas other people possess individual souls, we possess the national, collective soul of Clal Yisrael, the Community of Israel, Knesset Yisrael.

Our Sages teach that this national soul is something unique to the Jewish People. Other nations are groupings of individuals who come together for some common interest and purpose, whether it be for self-defense, or economic strength, and the like. They are like individuals who buy stock in a company, in order to benefit from its revenues, but they aren’t the company itself. The Nation of Israel is different. Wherever we may be, we have the unique national soul of the Jewish People who stood at Mount Sinai, which makes a Jew, first and foremost, a Jew wherever he may wander. He may hold an American passport, but his soul is 100% strictly kosher – Hebrew National, to make a pun.

This national soul makes us Israelis wherever we may wander. We are members of the Nation of Israel – the Children of Israel. The word Jew doesn’t exist in the Torah. It’s a deviation of the exile, as in Mordechai the Jew, meaning someone who was exiled from the kingdom of Judah. In our essence, we are the Children of Israel, whether we live in Boston or LA.

True, this national soul doesn’t come to expression when we are alienated from our Land and exiled amongst the nations. Without our own Land, we exist as individuals, operating on a low-level individual soul, while our national soul is in the garage getting fixed. But with our return to our national Land, our giant national soul returns too. In effect, we become giant Jews, part of a powerful Jewish Nation, the reborn Nation of Israel, with a Jewish government, and Jewish economy, and Jewish army. Instead of tiny, lilliputian individual souls, we become national giants – Israelis, Divinely empowered with new found courage and strength.

The Jews of the Diaspora have this giant national soul too, but it’s defused, deactivated, in hibernation, like a vestigial organ, as long as they’re outside of the Land of Israel. But they are the Children of Israel nevertheless. Israel is their one and only true Land, and they have the duty to defend it just like the Israelis who live there.

If one listens to or reads the transcript of Yair Lapid’s address to Haredi law students at Kiryat Ono College, one can see why he won so big in the last election.

For those who don’t know, Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid Party won the second largest number of seats in the Israeli Kenesset (19) after Netanyahu’s coalition party of Likud/Yisrael Beitenu (31).

After reading it, I think I may have actually voted for him too, if I lived in Israel. Lapid won because he is apparently a very wise man who recognizes the truth and is unafraid to speak it.

And yet Lapid scares Haredim. So much so that they have united with Shas to try and form a political block with an equal number of seats as an alternative to Lapid in a coalition alliance with Netanyahu . They fear they may lose out and not become a part of the governing coalition – and therefore not have the power they have enjoyed in recent years. And they may be right.

Why does he scare the Haredim? There are probably many reasons for that. For one thing his father “Tommy” Lapid formed an anti-Haredi party whose purpose was to battle Haredi influence in government. Haredim might think, “Like father like son”. After all where does a person mostly learn their attitudes about others if not from the home?

Another thing they see is his uncompromising demand that Haredim be subject to the draft. This they fear with a vengeance. To Haredi rabbinic leadership, supporting the draft of Haredim into the army is tantamount to supporting the destruction of Yiddishkeit. This has been made clear time and again by their public statements on the matter or in one public protest after another. That alone is perhaps enough in their minds to consider him a Rasha.

In fact it wouldn’t even surprise me if they dismissed his speech at Kiryat Ono entirely even if they did hear it, because of his support of drafting of Haredim. Not that any of them would even bother listening to – or reading the transcript of his speech. Their leaders have spoken and he has been dismissed as a Torah hater – or something akin to it. End of discussion!

Which is kind of the problem with Haredi leadership in Israel. If anyone has an all or nothing approach to things it is them. If a secular Jew says one thing in opposition to their views about Judaism, he is evil.

Which is too bad. Because what Lapid says makes eminent sense. In fact if I didn’t know he was a secular Jew I would say that he was very much a part of the Dati Leumi camp. (Although he does refer to himself as secular several times during the course of his speech.) Much of what he says could have been said by me… and probably has been at one time or another.

What is remarkable about this speech is not only that he pushes for the same things I do. But that he recognizes that Haredim have won! He recognizes the error of Israel’s founding fathers in rejecting Talmudic Judaism in favor of biblical Judaism. He recognizes that the complaint by Haredim that seculars too often believe in “Kochi V’Otzem Yodi” is a valid one. That is the view that all of Israel’s successes in war are due solely to their own military prowess. Lapid says that this belief is a mistake and he recognizes that there is a God in the world. And he says that even secular Israel is now more religious than ever. The majority of Israelis even believe in Torah MiSinai!

He fully admits that the founding fathers not recognizing the spiritual component of Israel was a mistake.

Haredim won the battle between the forces of secularism and socialism that guided its founding fathers. They should therefore no longer consider themselves just a small party – one of many – seeking whatever it can for its own constituents regardless of what’s good for the country as a whole. Instead Haredism is increasingly defining the mainstream by virtue of its exploding demographic and perhaps more importantly by the very nature of Judaism itself: its spiritualism.

Without the spiritual component Israel has little if any real attraction for a secular Jews. Who wants to live in a place where all of your neighbors that outnumber you in geometric proportion want to annihilate you? Why would any human being want to live like that? Without the spiritual component that Haredim stand for, no normal person would want to live in such a hostile and dangerous part of the world.

He acknowledges that Israel cannot exist without Haredism but says that Haredism cannot exist without Israel.

The bottom line for Lapid is that he seems to have done some soul searching and discovered some of the eternal truths of Judaism, its history, and the requirements for Israel’s survival. In a very real sense, this secular Jew is a very spiritual person. And a very honest person. Which makes me wonder how he ever became a politician!

But then again, if ever there was a time for an honest politician in Israel, that time is now. I truly believe that this man is a patriot who is both honest and who has a clear vision for the future. A vision that is inclusive of all!

I don’t know what a new governing coalition will look like, whether it will include Lapid or not. But I hope it does. And it would be nice if Haredim gave him a chance to prove himself to them. He is their friend whether they realize it or not.The full video presentation of Lapid’s speech (Hebrew with English subtitles) follows.

The Israeli elections last week saw a meteoric rise of a centrist party, and disproved near-universal forecasts of a rise of the religious right.

What do last week’s elections say about Israel’s future defense policies?

Israelis returned Netanyahu to the prime minister’s seat, meaning that the electorate would like him to continue to steer the country through this chaotic and dangerous era. The elections results also showed that voters backed Netanyahu’s hard work on tackling the Iranian threat, but remained deeply concerned over domestic issues, which Netanyahu’s last coalition of ultra-Orthodox and nationalist parties failed to address.

Lapid, located on the center-right of the political map, is no dove. He is pragmatic; he does not hold ideological or religious objections to an Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, but has recognized, rather, that Israel has no peace partner.

At the same time, Lapid and his party have expressed displeasure over the fact that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has been able to score victories over Israel in the diplomatic arena. Lapid has therefore called for reopening talks with Abbas, if only to prove Israel’s willingness to pursue a peace plan.

Lapid has also advocated a unilateral dismantling of far-flung outposts in Judea and Samaria, while consolidating the major settlement blocs — with or without a peace agreement.

On the most critical question of all — whether Israel should launch a military strike on Iran — Lapid has limited himself to calling on Netanyahu to do a better job of coordinating Israel’s position with that of the U.S.

He expressed concern over the dysfunctional state of relations between Netanyahu and President Barack Obama, and the ramifications of poor relations on future efforts to stop Iran.

In all likelihood, Lapid and his new party will join Prime Minister Netanyahu in forming the next coalition. If he joins the government, Lapid is expected to support Netanyahu’s main focus — stopping the Iranian nuclear program.

How did Yair Lapid and his Yesh Atid [There Is a Future] party — whose members have never sat in parliament — overnight become the second largest political force in Israel?

The answer resides in the quiet and growing alarm mainstream Israelis are feeling over the way the country’s resources are diverted to serve narrow minority interests at the majority’s expense.

Lapid merely pointed out problems that were known to all, but also promised to repair the glaring flaws, while enjoying a clean-cut image, free of the political baggage that had tarred the old guard in the eyes of much of the electorate.

Lapid’s campaign highlighted the fact that middle class Israeli families — the engine of the country’s economy — are struggling to make ends meet, yet significant funds are being diverted to support a parallel ultra-Orthodox society, which has its own education system. Many of those who study at ultra-Orthodox seminaries do not end up joining the workforce, and remain dependent on state subsidies.

While a majority of secular and Orthodox national-religious Israelis risk their lives to serve in the military and protect their families, most ultra-Orthodox do not (although a growing number are.)

Lapid’s proposed solutions: A universal draft to the army or civilian national service for all Israelis, and limiting the number of state-sponsored seminary students to 400 (the current number of students is 60,000).

Lapid has also called for a change to Israel’s proportional representation system, to decrease the number of political parties, thereby limiting the ability of small parties to extort special privileges from ruling coalitions.

Israelis are also outraged by economic oligopolies, which are inflating prices of basic commodities, as well as the failure of past governments to protect citizens from exploitative corporations. The only exception to this is the outgoing communications minister, Moshe Kahlon, who reformed regulations and introduced new competition into the mobile phone industry, resulting in plummeting prices, and as a result became a national hero.

A significant numbers of hardworking Israeli families are in perpetual debt, while others — due to the inflated housing prices as a result of the state owning 93% of all lands, as well as bureaucratic red tape slowing down the construction process — are unable even to dream of owning their own home.

The old guard of Israeli politics is perceived as being out of touch, and tinged by cronyism, as well as by apathy to the common person.

I’ve been chugging along for the last few days trying to think what to write, not feeling there was much to say. The wonderful thing about the flat of the roller coaster is that time seems to stretch without a sense of urgency. It’s so boring on the flat of the roller coaster and I am grateful for boring. I am grateful that I can go to sleep at night and not worry that my phone may not be charged enough. Everything is okay; missiles aren’t flying and my sons are home safe. Boring is one of God’s greatest gifts!

Elie is studying engineering; Shmulik is looking into studying computers and Davidi needs a haircut! Aliza is cruising towards her 13th birthday, just as Davidi is in the final days before he turns 17.

My oldest daughter is studying and watching her baby gain words and actions every day. It is amazing how quickly babies learn – at least this one. I know they all must, but I just don’t remember seeing a baby understand so much, so fast, so early.

My children were the most amazing…how is it possible that a grandchild can be as amazing (perhaps even a bit more amazing in some ways?). He calls me “Savta” – grandma in Hebrew, and my heart melts. He gives me a kiss and I am unsure I can ever put him down. You can talk to him and he talks back. He was over today and when Aliza went upstairs for a minute, he walked over to the steps, looked up and called, “Iza! Down!” He walked around the room identifying things, calling out words. This is the beauty of the calm oasis of today.

Sometimes I feel that something is coming – and it’s scary. I don’t know what it is, if it is. I saw a report that 400 people were killed in Syria today – bodies are being found and there are reports of chemical weapons being used. Iran remains an open sore; a danger on the edge. The Egyptians aren’t particularly stable; God knows what is happening in Lebanon and Jordan issued a warning to Jews last week not to visit dressed in apparel that easily identifies them as Jews…for their own safety of course. Personally, I’d cut to the chase on that one and tell Jews not to visit, but never mind.

Driving home today with Elie on a beautiful sunny day, I felt this pressure, this concern as we drove up the mountain to Maale Adumim. It’s probably a combination of a lot of things. For one thing, I’m busy at work – two courses running, a new writer starting, and to top it off, we’re coordinating an amazing national conference for February 7 (www.megacomm.org).

The Executive Director of an organization wrote to me explaining their interest in attending the conference. The conversation turned a bit personal and wanting to show that I have an interest in the work they do, I mentioned that I was “A Soldier’s Mother.” I provided a link to the blog – hoping she would come here and read a bit and see that we share common interests.

And in the response – sadness turned to a smile. “Oh my goodness,” she wrote, “YOU are asoldiersmother?…I read your blog and have shared your pieces often.”

I guess it’s my ego, but I find that so cool. I like when people say, “oh, I’ve heard of you” or “I read your blog.” But, I just loved that “YOU” are a soldier’s mother? I’m not sure, but I think I wrote back, “I am, I am.” If I didn’t write it back, I certainly thought it.

I am, you see – for 31 days this year, an active soldier’s mother; and for 365 days a year for the next 25 years or so, the mother soldiers that can be called – any time, without warning. I’ve experienced the “Tzav Shmona” – an immediate mobilization and I can tell you that I pray to God I never experience it again. I can still feel the air leaving my body when I heard Lauren tell me that they were on the way back to Maale Adumim for Elie to get his army gear, that he’d been called in.

Last night, at the very end of my day – already close to midnight, I headed home, stopping by my daughter’s house to pick up the car seat for the baby. There in the quiet of the middle of the night, knowing I’d have to be up in six hours, I had a short talk with my son-in-law. He is a very special person in so many ways, more than I could ever explain without my eyes filling with tears. I’m so blessed to have him – well yes, my daughter has him, but he has her and together, they have each other. For a mother to see that…is beyond words. After two years, he finishes the army this week, returns his uniform and will be free to do what he wants, when he wants. It hasn’t sunk in yet, he told me.

I told him that it was good he had served and how it is good for a son to have a father who has gone through the army. Elie didn’t have that – what he brought to us, the stories, the process, the problems – were all new. My husband listened but couldn’t offer his own opinions, advice, army stories of his own. Each thing that happened to Elie was a discovery for us, an unknown, a path never traveled by any of us. It was easier for Shmulik and Chaim because they had Elie to guide them, advise them. Where a parent might call a commanding officer, Elie has taken that role if it was needed; Elie answers the questions, explains.

So when my grandson gets to that age, I said, if he serves in the army, Haim will be able to guide him, to share from the side of knowing. Haim is happy he served, enriched in many ways by the experience. There is a lot that is good about the army, he told me, but he looked down and around when I mentioned his son serving. It is years and years away – his son, my amazingly special grandson, is just a baby.

When you get to be my age, you understand how fast time goes – when your first is just a young toddler, it seems the future is ages away. And then Haim told me something I had forgotten, something friends of mine had told me when their son went into the army.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” my friend said. “We served so that he wouldn’t have to.”

My son-in-law wants to believe in a future in which there will be peace and no reason for his toddler to ever grow into a soldier. He served so that his son wouldn’t have to. I’d forgotten that. My son-in-law needs to believe that there will be no need for soldiers in another 18 or so years. Deep down, I want to believe that too, but there is this massive wall inside me that doesn’t believe.

Visit A Soldier’s Mother.

Both the Islamists and the opposition in Egypt confirmed that Egyptians overwhelmingly chose to become yet another Islamic, Sharia-based state with the adoption of their new constitution.

It is estimated that 64% of those voting in both rounds, voted “yes”, with numerous irregularities reported during both votes.

And to top it off, as pointed out in Forbes, the new constitution does more than just enshrine Islamic Sharia law, it also enshrines socialism as their economic structure.

Ahram Online reports that Egyptian President Morsi has announced his list of 90 representatives who will become members of the Shura council (out of 270 members).  The Shura Council will take on the powers from the president to issue laws.

But despite Morsi including a handful of women and minorities in his list, Ahram Online reports:

Tens of liberal and leftist figures have declined the positions offered to them by the president in the Shura Council.

This means that members of the main opposition’s parties, previously represented in the now-dismantled People’s Assembly, are now not represented in new appointments to the Shura Council.

Do you still care about the three BJ rabbis who started WW3? Well, it turns out they did mean to write that email, but they didn’t mean to send that particular email out, it was only a draft, and they didn’t mean to co-sign the entire lineup of BJ leadership without their knowledge, that too was because of the draft.

Can somebody close the window over there?

The bottom line is: they’re not sorry they were happy about the PLO being recognized as a UN state – they’re still besides themselves with joy on that account…

“So the rabbis of B’nai Jeshurun are now expressing some ‘regret’ over their email endorsing the UN’s Palestine statehood vote, writes” JTA’s Daniel Treiman.

The straight forward JTA coverage lays out the facts:

Rabbis at B’nai Jeshurun are expressing “regret” over an email sent out by the prominent New York synagogue praising the United Nations vote to elevate Palestinians to non-member state status.

The rabbis of the Manhattan synagogue sent a note Thursday to congregants saying that their email last week endorsing the UN action had been sent prematurely and mistakenly listed several other synagogue officials as signatories.

“While we affirm the essence of our message, we feel that it is important to share with you that through a series of unfortunate internal errors, an incomplete and unedited draft of the letter was sent out which resulted in a tone which did not reflect the complexities and uncertainties of this moment,” the rabbis, Rolando Matalon, Marcelo Bronstein and Felicia Sol, wrote in their follow-up email.

The rabbis also wrote that they “regret the feelings of alienation that resulted from our letter.”

The latest email was first reported by The New York Jewish Week.

The original email, sent last Friday, drew both praise and outrage from members of the nondenominational Upper West Side synagogue, which is known for its liberal politics and lively services. The email and ensuing controversy drew significant media attention, including a front-page story in The New York Times on Wednesday.

“The vote at the UN yesterday is a great moment for us as citizens of the world,” the original email stated. “This is an opportunity to celebrate the process that allows a nation to come forward and ask for recognition. Having gained independence ourselves in this way, we are especially conscious of this.”

In their follow-up, the three rabbis wrote that they are “passionate lovers of Israel” and are “unequivocally committed to Israel’s security, democracy and peace.”

They also wrote that the original email was a letter from them and that the synagogue’s cantor, board president, executive director and director of Israel engagement were listed mistakenly as signatories.

Treiman comments:

“The timing of the correction is curious. After all the original email was sent out six days ago, on Friday. (One might have thought that the shul would have moved more quickly to correct the inadvertent inclusion of four synagogue officials on an email about such a hot-button issue.)

“But the follow-up email only came after a backlash among some angry congregants (including sometime-attendee Alan Dershowitz, who challenged the shul’s rabbis to a debate) and a front-page(!) story in The New York Times (a paper that is often accused of giving short shrift to local news but apparently puts a premium on such news when it overlaps with Israel issues and Upper West Side Jewish liberalism).

“Incidentally, B’nai Jeshurun’s home page at one point on Thursday morning featured the following quote attributed to the three rabbis: “As rabbis, our job is… to court controversy and to raise disturbing questions many would be more content to leave in the background – and certainly outside the synagogue.”

I suppose to be “passionate lovers of Israel” means you never have to say you’re sorry…

Related: Cartoon

Once upon a time in America, there was a military draft. That meant that every single able bodied young man in America was required to serve in the army. Reaching the age of 18, they would have to register with a draft board and get a draft card.

I remember that period very well. When I was 18 the draft was in full force. So was the Viet Nam War. And both stayed that way until the end of the Viet Nam War. After which President Richard M. Nixon abolished the draft in America. That is how things stand now. This – the greatest and most powerful nation on the face of the earth is protected by an army of volunteer soldiers.

But ‘back in the day’ I was indeed subject to be drafted into the army and sent to Viet Nam to flight in what many of us (including my Rebbe Rav Ahron Soloveichik) called an immoral war. All was not lost however. There were ways to get out of it legally. Although there were many young Americans who resisted the draft in an assortment of illegal ways (like surreptitiously crossing the border into Canada) there were quite a few legal ways to get out of serving in Viet Nam. One way was by joining the US Coast Guard for example. One could also get a deferment and finish his education.

We Yeshiva students had the best ‘gig’ of all. The Selective Service Act (the draft) provided complete exemptions for divinity students. That meant that as long as someone was studying in a Yeshiva or Seminary they were exempt from serving in the army. In fact all clergy (priests, ministers, and rabbis) were exempt – as were those of studying for those positions. It was called a 4-D exemption.

Yeshivos all over the country were packed with students who otherwise might not have been there. The beauty for those who were there for purposes of dodging the draft was that the Yeshivos allowed them to attend college towards their original goals of seeking a career -and still be a member in good standing at the yeshiva.

I mention all of this in light of the continuing story about drafting Charedim into the Israeli army. The rabbinic leadership is resisting this full force. One of the arguments they put forward is that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) doesn’t really need them. That those who serve now are more than enough. That drafting Yeshiva students is simply a ploy to destroy the Torah World. From an article in YWN, here is how Agudat Israel party member Rabbi Meir Porush put it:

[W]e are dealing with (the holy of holies of the people of Israel),” the destruction of yeshivos R”L, the government permits itself to publically declare the draft of bnei yeshivos is a matter of a few months

Porush added the state did not even bother to explain to the court that in actuality, the IDF cannot compel the avreichim to serve for in reality; they will prefer to fill the nation’s prisons before agreeing to abandon the benches of beis medrash

Porush condemned the prime minister’s “immoral position”, for he feels that without the frum community Mr. Netanyahu would not have been elected yet now, he turns his back on this very same tzibur. Porush adds the Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will become the first prime minister in the state’s history who rejects the study of Torah as the “profession” of the avreichim and therefore, is working to compel their draft into military service.

Porush explains the actions of the administration is tantamount to a declaration of war against the chareidi tzibur and on this matter there cannot and will not be the slightest compromise towards accommodating the position of the government.

How odd. From my perspective it is Rav Porush’s attitude that is wrong – and perhaps even immoral. Prisons?! It is better for Yeshiva students to sit in jail than to serve their country?! He uses hyperbole and exaggeration to make his points and concludes that the Israeli government has declared this a war against Charedim?! And he says that Prime Minister Netanyhau is immoral?!

First of all let me explode that myth. There is a sizable minority that is willing to comply wit the draft. According to an article in Ynet, 66% percent of Charedim believe Yeshiva students should be exempt from the draft. That means 34% of Charedim think that Yeshiva students should serve in the IDF. So much for declaring a war on Charedim.

What makes Rav Porush’s postion immoral for me is the gross inequity of exempting only Yeshiva students. The claim that they are not needed is nothing more than spin. What he means of course is that there are enough secular and Dati Leumi (MO) IDF members so that it is unnecessary to draft Yeshiva students.

That is ridiculous. The way the draft should work is that every single young man no matter what strata of Israeli society he comes from has an equal chance of being drafted. Sure – the way things have been structured until now required the government of Israel to fill its quota only with secular and Dati Leumi Jews.

But in an ideal and equitable world that should have never happened. Every single able bodied young man should register with a draft board. Why should only secular and Dati -Religious Zionist boys be put in harm’s way? Is Charedi blood redder? Is secular and Dati Leumi blood cheaper? The system is unfair from the get go. That Charedi Yeshiva students have all been exempt until now doesn’t mean that this unfair paradigm should continue.

This is why the government has changed the law and has made everyone subject to the draft. It is about fairness and has nothing to do with being anti Torah!

What about a divinity exemptions – like the one that existed in my day in America? Yes. I think there should be some Yeshiva students that are exempt… as there should be students of other disciplines that are vital to Israel’s existence. But it can’t be full exemptions to every single Yeshiva student as was the case in the America of my day.

There are 2 major differences between America and Israel. One is that Israel is and has been under constant siege from the very first day of its existence. It is under direct deadly conflict with its neighbors who threaten to annihilate it daily. The other is that its population is too small to allow that many exemptions. Especially to only one segment. America – even at the height of the Viet Nam War was huge! …and easily could fulfill its draft quota.

That said, I suppose that a fair and equitable draft in America should have included Yeshiva students too. Perhaps. But the Viet Nam War was not a popular war. It was not a war for survival. There were very few young people who supported that war. And no one clamored that this exemption wasn’t fair. It was widely accepted and respected.

Israel simply does not have enough manpower for the luxury of mass exemptions. Especially when there are so many young soldiers that have given up life and limb for their country. Israel is in a war for survival. Unlike America of the Viet Nam Wra era – popular opinion in Israel today is on the side of military service.

Charedi Rabbanim counter that it is the Torah study of Yeshivos that actually protects the country. I do not argue the point. The importance of the spiritual army does not however preclude the need of a physical army with a fair and equitable draft.

I think it is a gross misrepresentation for Rabbi Porush and other Charedi Rabbonim to suggest that the motive of the Israeli government is tantamount to declaring war on the Torah. Are Hesder boys also part of that war? This is not about fighting Torah. This is about fairness.

With 34% of the Charedi world agreeing that Yeshiva Bachurim should not be exempt, I’m sure that the government of Israel can devise a way for an equitable solution to this problem. There are over 60,000 students studying in Yeshivos and Kollelim. The better students can remain with their “4D” exemption. 66% of them. 34% can voluntarily subject themselves to the draft. That’s over 20,000 new Charedi recruits. That – at the very least – is the right thing to do.

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