The anxiety over the issue of the haredi draft in Israel is increasing. Last week in New York City there was a protest by some chasidic groups against the State of Israel and the draft. Some photos showed signs being carried with the slogan, “anti-Semitism.”
To me, Jews publicly protesting Israeli policy in the US is simply anathema.
Be it JStreeters on the liberal left or extremist chasidim on the right.
I will never understand it.
We are talking about the State of Israel.
Our Israel.
Which already has so many enemies around the world. If we won’t stand with our own, who will?
Our job is to help Israel, not to add more enemies to her list.
Outside of Israel, our job is to stand united with her.
We can disagree about policies, and many of us have over the years, especially with since the Oslo agreements, when two distinct camps of thought evolved. But to protest the essence of Israel, and to bring trouble on her trouble — this I simply don’t understand.
Plus, remember that those communities opposing Oslo were crying out their protest within Israel, but were mocked or silenced. Obviously, there is no justification for the sick and profoundly horrific act of murdering the prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin. But it would have been wise for the pro-Oslo Accords leaders to note that the major changes they were proposing were not going over well. The leaders did not take the temperature of their own society. This failure should provide a lesson about how to try to bring about change — by listening to and hearing the fears of those feeling threatened for their values and way of life.
I have often heard Holocaust survivors, in this case religious Holocaust survivors, express this sentiment about Israel: “You don’t know what it’s like to be a Jew without the State of Israel.”
Where would we be without our identity as Jews — wherever we might live in the world — linked to a homeland?
I believe in the value and responsibility of contributing to the society of Israel. The haredi community has contributed a lot of the chesed that is a the fabric of Israel’s society (Yad Sarah, Shalva, to name just a few of the major chesed organizations).
But there is something to be said for a systematic approach that is equal for all citizens, be they religious or secular.
Respectful of the haredi way of life, national service in the form of community service to organizations of their own is being advocated as a legitimate choice, in lieu of the army draft.
Yet the pushback is still so intense.
I believe part of the pushback is due to the sledgehammer approach of the secular political party, Yesh Atid, that is leaving much of the haredi community feeling threatened— like their way of life is being pulled out from under them. I know that many feel it has been decades without change, and it’s time to accelerate the process of integration and responsibility of much of the haredi community. I understand that.
However, the truth is, over the past decade, quietly, the haredi participation in the IDF has been increasing. In fact, this year, the Nachal Haredi came in second place for excellence in organization. Also, long before Nachal Haredi, back in the time of the Yom Kippur War, some haredim did take part in army service. Granted, it’s been 40 years since that war, and the generations raised since then live more disconnected from the State.
And I admit, what bothers me is the cry about serving Israel and the Jewish people is comparable to tsarist Russia. We are talking about Israel — fighting for your own.
After centuries of persecution without the opportunity to defend ourselves, many out there feel tremendous pride in having the opportunity to defend themselves in the IDF.
Our greatest Biblical leaders fought our battles, from Abraham to King David.
When the Israelites went out to battle, the Ark of the Covenant was always with them, preceding them in battle.
On the one hand, I can see haredim using this as an argument for their contribution to Israel being Torah study, spiritual strength — their way of doing battle for Israel. On the other hand, I can see the argument go the other way — that even the Ark of the Covenant, the spiritual dimension, “went to war.”
I think that what seems today to be an unbridgeable fissure and injury could have been bridged a bit of over the years had Israel’s Memorial Day been acknowledged respectfully. Aside from pausing for the siren, had the haredi community actively expressed their sense of partnership in their Torah study as the spiritual division of the army, perhaps publicly having Tehillim (Psalms) vigils for the soldiers at the Kotel and the like, perhaps some of the deep strife on this issue could have been mitigated.
At the same time, I could see how prayer and study could be perceived as cynical, as over against the risk of death by army families, shaking for the lives and safety of their children on army duty, let alone by those bereaved families who sacrificed for the rest of us.
It does feel imbalanced.
From another point of view — shouldering the economic burden of the Jewish people, recognizing the unsustainability of the status quo and the accompanying painful poverty — I do believe that a paradigm shift within the haredi community in Israel is warranted. A healthy productivity that comes from working is warranted.
But I also believe in quiet revolutions. I don’t see the current, arrogant political path to change as wise or yielding the desired results. The current path will not yield a healthy, happy and successful transition within a community. Those contributing to this tensions are both secular politicians and some of the haredi leadership.
However, to allow X number of slots for full-time Torah study only by the elite Torah students does echo of enemies from our past, recalling oppression and suppression of Torah study that only serves to threaten the haredi community.
At its height the famed Volozhin Yeshiva only had a few hundred students; most people did not study full time. It is also true that we are the people of the book, and when Rabbi Yochanan had the choice between Jerusalem and Yavneh with her scholars, he chose Yavneh and her scholars over Jerusalem in order to forge a future for the Jewish people after the destruction of the Temple.
We are not called the People of the Book for nothing. Scholarship is the legacy of the Jewish people. The legacy is also of King David and his battles for Israel. The words of the book of Psalms he authored are on our lips in our moments of greatest joy or sadness. In time, the model of combining both scholarship and army or community service can, one hopes, gain traction.
It goes without saying that, ideally, we strive for a time when the IDF will not be necessary at all.
The reality on the ground in Israel is of an insulated, in many ways beautiful, multi-generational, sheltered community that needs change, and should be shepherded through this change with wisdom and care, not simply out of political motive. Otherwise the attempt at change will fail, creating an even wider, perhaps never to be bridged divide. We the Jewish people will all be the worse off for that.
Copyright © 2014 by the Intermountain Jewish News
