What a shock: MK's leading charge for 'equalizing the burden' did not serve in combat units
The Haredi website Kikar Shabbat discloses that while most Haredim who serve in Nachal Haredi (the Haredi unit, which is the largest unit in the IDF) serve in combat units, some members of the Yesh Atid party who have been pushing hardest for 'equalizing the burden' served in - AHEM - 'alternative service' (link in Hebrew). Here's what some of them did in the IDF:
Party leader and Finance Minister Yair Lapid - Reporter for IDF newspaper
Education Minister Shai Piron - Served in Education Corps while in a hesder yeshiva
Science and Technology Minister Yaakov Peri - Served in IDF orchestra (and later in the General Security Service)
MK Yoel Rezbozov - Shortened service as an outstanding athlete
Health Minister Yael German - Did not serve (got married young, one of her sons was killed in action)
MK Dov Lipman - Did not serve (made aliya from the US at age 34)
MK Rena Frankel - Did not serve (made aliya from Russia at age 30)
At Yesh Atid, the reaction to the report. Some of it is in the parentheses above. Here's some more:
Peri's spokseman claims he was assigned to a paratroopers unit where he was wounded and therefore was assigned alternative service. He also spent 30 years in the GSS.
Rezbozov decided to do what all his friends did but was brave enough to wave an Israeli flag in the town where Hitler was born (no, I'm not joking - he really said this).
It will be interesting to see what his Rosh Yeshiva will say this time. Dov Lipman has proven once again that wearing a black skullcap does not make you Haredi. Yair Lapid's useful idiot has called for criminal sanctions against Haredim who don't serve in the army.
When asked regarding the criminal sanctions being proposed for the
law for hareidi draft-dodgers, which Jewish Home chairman Naftali
Bennett has counter-proposed with economic sanctions, Lipman noted that the edict is really no different than the laws for any draft-dodger in Israel.
The Equal Burden of Service Law does not focus on the hareidi
community per se, according to the MK, but rather promotes equality
among the various sectors of Israel's population.
Thus, economic sanctions would promote inequality, says Lipman; the
wealthy would be able to pay the fines and keep dodging the draft,
whereas the less wealthy will not.
Really? How many university students who evaded the draft (given that draft evasion in Israel stands in the 40-50% range and the Haredim make up 10-20% of the population, there must be some) are going to be thrown in jail? Will Aviv Geffen face criminal sanctions?
The US is sending its president and two former presidents to
anti-apartheid hero and former South African president Nelson Mandela's
funeral Tuesday. The UK and France sent its prime ministers, as did
another 88 countries. Oprah and the Dalai Lama were set to attend.
Israel, however, came close to sending no one, in an awkward diplomatic
situation that developed throughout Monday.
In the end, Knesset
Speaker Yuli Edelstein will fly to the funeral, along with the first
female Ethiopian MK Pnina Tamano-Shata (Yesh Atid), as well as MKs Dov
Lipman (Yesh Atid), Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz), Gila Gamliel (Likud
Beytenu) and Hilik Bar (Labor).
Edelstein, a former prisoner of
Zion in the USSR, said he's "happy that in the end Israel has
representation at this important event. As a former prisoner of
conscience, I had the privilege of meeting Mandela as a minister in
1996, and we shared experiences from prison and the fight for our
rights. This is a sort of closure for me."
But even this delegation almost didn't make it.
The Israel Security Agency (Shabak) was concerned about Netanyahu or
Peres visiting South Africa, because of overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian
sentiment in the country.
Next in line to visit was Edelstein, who put together a group of MKs to join him.
However,
the final decision was delayed for hours. First, because of
difficulties finding a free plane. Then, it was unclear that an Israeli
plane would be able to land, due to high air traffic.
Eventually,
three hours before the Knesset delegation was supposed to fly,
Edelstein closed the deal, even reducing the price of renting a small
plane from NIS 2 million to NIS 350,000.
It will be interesting to see what kind of reception the Israeli delegation gets....
Report: Haredi yeshiva student attacked in bus station by IDF soldiers
A deeply disturbing report on a Haredi web site (link in Hebrew) claims that four IDF soldiers - apparently pictured above - tried to force a yeshiva student out of the line for a bus from Jerusalem to Bat Yam this past week, including physically attacking him to force him out of the line.
According to the report, which is described in some detail on the Facebook page of Haredi yeshiva student Eliran Sabah, four soldiers approached him while he was standing in line for a 404 bus from Jerusalem to Bat Yam in the Central Bus Station, and demanded that he give up his place in line, because they serve in the IDF and he is 'simply a parasite.' (As of now, by the way, that Facebook page doesn't work, nor does the video in the first link - I suspect someone complained to Facebook and they did the wrong thing for a change...).
When that didn't work, they called him a 'disgusting Haredi' and a draft dodger, and tried to physically force him out of the line. The female soldier attempted to grab and destroy Sabah's cell phone, with which he was documenting the incident, claiming that 'I am a soldier in the IDF and therefore you must respect me.'
Sabah, who claims that he seriously considered enlisting (a Haredi with a Facebook page is unusual in this country, and I suspect that Sabah is in fact much more open than the average Haredi), says that he will file a complaint with the military police.
And from his hot oven in the heat of summer, many levels below the ground, Tommy Lapid SR"Y is smiling at the civil war that his son Yair has wrought.
The future of the State of Israel lies with those who are committed to
Jewish observance and tradition in some way that can be deemed
significant. This certainly does not mean that all Israelis will be
fully observant, orthodox, or hareidi in the foreseeable future; but
there is no future for those with an exclusively secular ideology.
Nearly one third of all first graders in Israel today are enrolled in Hareidi schools. Close to 60%
of all first graders are enrolled in Hareidi, Hareidi Le’umi
(Nationalist Hareidi), or Dati Le’umi (Religious Zionist) schools. It is
routine for religious/hareidi families to have 6-10 children. It is
rare to find a secular family in Israel with more than one or two.
If Secularism struggles to provide the depth of motivation and
commitment necessary to bring children into the world, how can it
possibly hope to provide the commitment and motivation necessary to
maintain a Jewish state in the face of worldwide demonization – the UN
has passed more resolutions condemning Israel than any other nation in
existence – and fanatical Arab/Islamic hordes bent on her destruction?
The Torah describes our slavery in Egypt as a “fiery refining furnace.”
In the ensuing 3,400 years nothing has really changed. The mission of
our people has required us to endure an ongoing series of “refining
furnaces” across the ages. In the end only those that cling to the
eternal values of the Torah can thrive and grow through such a process.
If Dov Lipman would like to make a real contribution he should point out to Yair Lapid – as I wrote about at length in an earlier article
– that the Hareidi community has been demonized and marginalized since
the early days of Zionism. The Hareidim has been treated as 2nd
class citizens since the founding of the state. Secular Israelis have
bent over backwards in their attempts to make peace with the murderous
Arabs/Islamists who surround them. It is time to now to make peace with
their own Hareidi brothers and sisters. The study of Torah is the only
thing that kept the Jewish people alive for thousands of years; the
study of Torah is national service of the highest order and without it
the Jewish people and the State of Israel would disappear.
A final message to Dov Lipman: If you want to return to your true Torah
roots and accept the authority of the great Torah sages when it comes to
the education of our children, we will accept you back with open arms.
If not, remember one thing and one thing only: When you hear Yair Lapid
say “jump,” that is your cue to say, “how high boss?!”
Proof positive that Lapid is trying to destroy the Haredi way of life in Israel
A gutten zummer - a good summer - to everyone, and a reminder that I am online this evening because I am an Israeli who is in Israel, and therefore it is no longer a holiday for me.
If any of you had any doubt that Yair Lapid and his Yesh Atid party seek to destroy the Haredi way of life in Israel, here is proof positive that is precisely what they intend. Look at the school funding provision in the budget that Lapid and his 'boss' - Binyamin Netanyahu - railroaded through the cabinet on Monday (Hat Tip: Mrs. Carl).
Buried in the details of the Budget
Arrangements Law is this provision: National Religious and secular
schools that teach 100% of the curriculum will receive 100% funding. The
Independent Education system of United Torah Judaism and the Shas
party’s Maayan Hachinuch educational stream that teach 100% of the core
curriculum will be funded at only 75%.
One could argue about the propriety of a
government financing anything other than a purely secular education.
However, once the government makes a decision to fund even religious
schools – providing they teach the core curriculum – then that decision
should be applied to all children who meet the criteria, without
discrimination
The provision is contrary to the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Israel ratified in
1991. As a signatory of the Convention, Israel has undertaken to provide
for the rights of children “without discrimination of any kind,
irrespective of the child’s or his or her parent’s or legal guardian’s
race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion,
national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other
status.”
By choosing to fund National Religious schools
that teach 100% of the core curriculum at the same rate as secular
schools, but not funding haredi schools that teach 100% of the core
curriculum, the government is violating its international legal
obligation not to discriminate against children based on their religious
practice.
Provisions like these expose our Finance
Minister as someone so interested in socially re-engineering one
particularly group of society with whom he disagrees that he is willing
to discriminate against Israeli children.
So far, the only non-haredi politician to
point this out has been Labor Party Chairwoman Shelly Yachimovich, who
emphasized that while she is not religious in any way and does not share
much with the haredim, even she found the anti-haredi ranting in the
law distasteful and that it “has nothing to do with economics; it is all
electioneering.”
I am a fiscal conservative and I do not share
Ms. Yachimovich’s labor ideology, but I do salute her for being the only
one thus far to stand up against this assault on children’s rights. If
we do not denounce blatant discrimination against Israeli children it
will not be long before the civil and human rights of all Israeli
citizens who do not toe the majority party line are in danger.
This provision is so openly discriminatory
against specific Israeli children that I find it incomprehensible that
such a provision should ever find its way into a proposed law. Moreover,
few people seem to blink at it.
Message to the stiff necked Dov Lipman - a member of Yesh Atid: How much longer do you intend to be a fig leaf in this blatant attempt to destroy everything your rabbis stand for?
Rabbi Aharon Feldman apologizes to Rabbi Dov Lipman
After being shown the Times of Israel article that I lined here, Rabbi Aharon Feldman, the Rosh Yeshiva of Baltimore's Ner Israel Rabbinical College, has apologized to Yesh Atid MK and Ner Israel alumnus Rabbi Dov Lipman. Rabbi Feldman says "I never called him a Rasha (wicked person) (Hat Tip: Soccer Dad via Baltimore Jewish Life).
Let's go to the videotape.
There's also a fascinating exchange between Lipman and Mishpacha Magazine's Contributing Editor Yisrael Besser here.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
