Following a meeting of the Moetzes gedolei Hatorah of Agudas Yisroel in Eretz yisrael regarding the threat to draft yeshiva Bochurim it was decided that some Admorin will be joining massive protests in new York and Europe
Roshei Yeshiva from America signed on to a letter on behalf of Yeshiva Kneses Yitzchok of Chadera in Eretz Yisrael
The letter was signed by Rav Yisrael Yitzchok Kalmanowitz of Bnei Brak, Rav Zundel Kroyzer of Yerushalayim, Harav Aaron Shechter Rosh yeshiva Chaim Berlin, Rav Elya Ber Wachtfogel R'Y South Fallsburg, Rav Elya Chaim Swerldloff R'Y Paterson, Rav Chaim Ozer Gorelick, R'Y Bais Medrash of Spring Valley.
You had an earlier post about how the gedolim in America don't want to bring the machlokis here. Well this is the first crack in that wall. Let's see how it plays out.
ReplyDeleteBut to return to a point I made in response to your earlier post, this (pretty small, but not nothing) group of American RY clearly want people to be involved. Otherwise they would not have signed the letter. And yet, you yourself said nothing more than "undergoing a difficult time", which defeats the purpose of this letter. Unless you're relying on the old "those who need to understand already do".
They are refereeing sometimes it takes an outsider to see things objectively.
DeleteThe world is very interconnected these days, and all these people are related in some manner to the various sides. Plus there are also a lot of behind the scenes actors - various moneymen and askonim - who fill in whatever gaps might remain.
DeleteBesides for all that, this is also pretty weak sauce. Not to take anything away from the various signatories on this letter, but if you compare them to the entire rabbinic and RY leadership of the US, they are a very small miuta dimiuta.
Though of course there are also behind the scenes moves as well, that are beyond the scope of letters like this. The real truth is that the EY gedolim don't really care a whole lot about what any American RY think about anything - a tough truth for those of us who grew up with RMF and RYK et al, but a fact nonetheless. The American RY have influence to the extent that American gvirim who support EY mosdos listen to them, and direct their EY support accordingly. That's where the real action is, and it's hard to discern from letters like this, without following it more closely.
The letter's last paragraph should have been written 25-30 years ago.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how the average Israeli, both religious and non-religious, who does serve in the IDF feel about mobilizing people who are not on the front line and face the daily security problems Israel and the soldiers of the IDF face, and who do not pay the taxes in Israel that go to subsidize Haredim and their lifestyle are going to feel about having these outsiders interfering in internal Israeli political debates when they are not going to have to face the consequences of these issues. After all, it is the ISRAELI people who have to make these decisions. Are demonstrations outside of Israel against Israel going to make Israelis more sympathetic to the cause expressed by this letter?
ReplyDeleteThe Chareidi community leadership still doesn't get it. The current efforts by the government to integrate the Chareidim into the army and general society aren't simply being done because of some sinister "We hate the Chareidim, let's destroy 'em!" philosophy. The absolute refusal of the leadership to consider this and to come up with some kind of compromise that will give the government some of what it wants while providing the community with relief from many of the initiatives is what's driving this thing now.
ReplyDeletePart of the problem is an entrenched mindset, but this goes both ways too. The government is not exactly going out of its way to accomodate a Charedi lifestyle either. Recently they've been going in the other direction, with a woman having been given a high-level position with the specific goal of integrating female soldiers into the male environment to a greater extent.
DeleteThe army in EY is a lot like college in the US. Can any minority society - especially one which attempts to promote a pretty restrictive lifestyle, relatively speaking - routinely send its youth for several years in a radically different and more permissive environment and expect them to emerge unscathed? I don't think this is possible.
The question is whether this issue is possible to overcome, and whether anybody on either side is interested in attempting to do so.
On the Charedi side, I think there's a mindset that's been in place for a while which makes that difficult. But even absent that, the draft is not ideal under any circumstances. So the key question as I would look at it if I was in charge is: can this battle be won? If it can, then it should be fought. If there's a good likelihood that it will be lost, then you need to start trying to negotiate the best situation posible before the battle is lost and with it your leverage.
As it looks to me now - from here in the US, to be sure - the arrests and such play into the hands of the Charedim. The aid cutoff works for the government. Hard to say what happens eventually. But the other big factor is that coalitions in Israel tend to be pretty shaky, and it's very possible that the Charedi parties will be needed sooner or later.
Again, it's hard to say. But gun to my head and forced to bet, my money would be on the Charedi side.
you seem not to get it.
DeleteFotheringay-
DeleteThe fact that coalitions are "shaky" does not mean that the Haredim can restore things they way they were. The problem of the relationship of the Haredim with the rest of society has been festering for years, particularly on the issue of military service, and there is tremendous pressure from below, from the people, for reforms in this area. This is one of the reasons that Lapid's party was so successful. The reason the matter has not been dealt with until now is that the Left was willing to capitulate to Haredi demands with the excuse that the so-called "peace process" was more important and so the Left could attempt to justify their concessions to the Haredim on those grounds. With general Israeli disillusionment with the "peace prrocess" now widespread, the Left has not been able to continue that policy. Currently there is a certain alliance of convenience between the Haredim and the Leftist opposition parties, but it must always be kept in mind that the rank-and-file of Leftist voters are more secular and have always been more hostile to concessions to the Haredim than the secular Right (Likud, Israel Beiteinu) rank-and-file, so the Haredim will not find salvation from MERETZ and the Labor Party in the long run, even if they all claim to "care about the poor". An alliance between the Haredim and the Arab opposition parties is even more problematic for obvious reasons, even if some Haredim will claim they are "natural allies" because of some supposed joing anti-Zionist ideology.
The main problem, as I see it, is that the Haredi leadership and their spokesmen have consistently refused to carry out a real dialogue with the rest of Israeli society and they have never spelled out on basis future relations between the Haredim and the rest of Israeli-Zionist society should be, given that the Haredim say they do not accept many of the values and ethos of the society at large. It is hard to overestimate the damage some Haredi spokesmen cause to their side with many of the sound-bites they put out such as "the IDF neither needs nor wants Haredi soldiers", for example. It is natural for the average Israeli to say "why do they 'need' my son, but not your son?". This is regardless of whatever manpoiwer allocations the IDF may want. Another damaging claim is that "putting Haredi boys into the IDF will force them to abandon religious observance" when all Israelis know religious soldiers, even Talmidei Hachamim who do serve. The subsequent response that "the religious soldiers are in actuality Religious ZIonists and they don't count in our eyes" infuriates both religious and non-religious people. Another common claim is that Haredi kids are all tzaddikim who will all become talmidei hachamim whereas non-religious kids are drugged-out criminals. What is the average Israeli going to think about a claim like this? They know very well that many Haredim are not bound to become great scholars and who do work and they can't understand why they can't serve the country like everyone else is require to do.
It is time that the Haredi community and its leaders finally talk on a man-to-man level with the rest of Israeli society, explain their posiition INTELLIGENTLY, without rhetoric which is really more directed at their own people in order to keep them in line and to finally admit there really is a problem instead of sweeping it under the rug, as has been done for some many years.
You're talking about long-term issues. I'm talking about this immediate situation.
DeleteI wonder how the Haredi leadership would respond to the following proposal which I once saw presented in the Left-wing Ha'aretz newspaper: All Haredim would be viewed as being similar to the Arab community in that they would be exempt from military service on the grounds of concience, and in return, the Haredim would give up all demands for special budgets and other such considerations, and would accept abolishing the Chief Rabbinate and separation of religion and state. Would that be an acceptable solution to the current tensions?
ReplyDeleteSounds like what Satmar, Neturei K etc, have always advocated.
DeleteThe others felt that there was importantly some gain for the less-religious Israelis if the religious still had some say and the state therefore retaining a veneer of religion. Interestingly, this week several of the papers have questioned if the time has finally come to implement this plan out of necessity.
On a follow-up note, it appears that RZK has put out a letter repudiating the first letter.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to hear the elevator speech they give to the american government officials.
ReplyDeleteKT
Joel Rich