1.
""You go in as an ultra-Orthodox and you come out as an ultra-Orthodox." This is the dictum that separates the recruitment of young ultra-Orthodox people who are not studying from the IDF uniform.
So I don't know if in the family of Shas Chairman Aryeh Deri, everyone who entered the army "with a kippah" came out "without one," as he said in an interview with Kol Hai radio this week, but I do know that many, many people from the Haredi public went through the sad process.
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Major General Eliezer Shkedi confirmed in a special report he wrote, at the request of then-Defense Minister Yoav Galant: "Promises made in the past regarding lifestyles and broken in the past, maintain and even deepen the distrust in the army.".
By all accounts, the trust between the leaders of the ultra-Orthodox public and the IDF leadership has been broken. So what do we do?
Last night, Cabinet Secretary, Attorney Yossi Fox, announced on Channel 14 that the government is in advanced stages of preparing to submit a draft conscription law to the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. "We will reach 10,000 ultra-Orthodox conscripts in the next two years," he promised.
According to him, "For the first time, the IDF is ready to adapt all frameworks to the Haredi public. A Haredi will enter the army and a Haredi will leave." The crushing sentence, as we said.
Really?
2.
It is true that after years of dragging its feet and not really investing in recruiting Haredim, the IDF apparently understands that it now also needs Haredim in its ranks. But it requires a lot of effort, a lot of adjustments. Now, it is probably worth the effort, and even if it is not - the High Court of Justice forced the move on the IDF, leaving it no choice.
A lot of resources, effort, and time have recently been invested in establishing the Hasmonaean Brigade, which has been defined as "strict." The regulations require recruits to wear "black and white," along with applying the most stringent rules common in the Haredi community.
On paper, at least.
Because already At the disclosure conference The brigade's recruits 'fell': Despite promises that the brigade would observe the rules of halakhic and Haredi custom - "including a male-only staff and the obligation to wear a hat and a suit during Shabbat meals, 'like in a yeshiva'" - in practice there was no separation between the dozens of women who participated in the conference and the men in the hall.
What he proved: 'Mehadrin' is certainly not. Indeed, in almost every Haredi family - not one that defines itself as very 'modern' in advance, a partition separating men and women accompanies every event.
3.
On one of the days of the summer recess, the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, headed by MK Yuli Edelstein, convened toDiscussion of the emerging law.
“"Want to stay with zero Haredi recruitment, but are you very right? No problem," Edelstein lashed out at the opposition members, who were stinging and fuming. "We are trying to advance a critical issue here.".
""I'm still naive," he added to them. "I still believe it's possible.".
Is it possible?
In the background: a High Court ruling, instructions from the Legal Advisor to the Prime Minister, the sending of thousands of 'first orders' to young Haredi candidates for service, and all this while there is still no law and no legal option to exempt from conscription those whose 'Torah is their art'.
The result: a blanket prohibition of Jewish elders, from almost all circles, to publicly and firmly order not to report for the 'first order' at the recruitment offices.
It turns out that people are willing to risk arrest, willing to suffer the loss of budgets, as long as they do not violate the order of their masters. Such willingness, it seems, the court did not take into account.
And so, two trains set off, moving head-on: the IDF train with forced conscription orders, and the Haredi train with the call of the great men of Israel not to report. The devastating collision is only a matter of time.
Will this clash occur on the day when an ultra-Orthodox man whose "Torah is his art" is arrested in practice, and the elders of Israel are ordered to launch the "mother of all demonstrations"? When a bride emerges from her veil, a woman gives birth from the delivery room, and a million people flood the country's roads?
And perhaps Yuli Edelstein's committee will actually succeed in issuing a conscription law, which will seal the law in the dam before raging waters wash us all away.
4.
I'm guessing, and it's not a wild bet, that in the coming weeks I'll hear a lot of statements against the 'deferral law.' So I just want to remind you: Today, when there is a service law for everyone, which requires every young man in Israel to enlist - it is the deferral law.
Indeed, under the shadow of this situation, when it was not possible to reach an agreement with a yeshiva student who was diligent in his Talmud day and night and wanted to postpone his service for a year, the order went out across sectors - Shas rabbis, Degel, Hapeleg, Eda and Rebbes - when all unanimously ordered not to even report to the draft offices upon receiving the 'first order'.
This is exactly the law of evasion. The law of 'head against the wall'.
Because if there's an option to raise 10,000 in two years, isn't that better than 'nothing'? Sometimes, like on the road, you have to be smart and not necessarily right.
Yes, I know all the fair arguments ("war, the army needs soldiers, why should we die in your place?" etc. etc.), but if there is a way to recruit 10,000 of those whom Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef called "idlers," and Rabbis tell them to "go to the army" - subject, of course, to establishing units that are compatible with their lifestyle - aren't 10,000 birds in the hand better than 63,000 on a tree?
