Israeli Army Fighting to "Make Redemption Delayed Again," R"L? The Latest Escalation in the Antireligious War Against Israeli Girls, and the Latest Success of a Girl Resisting the Draft

Israeli Army Fighting to "Make Redemption Delayed Again," R"L?

The Latest Escalation in the Antireligious War Against Israeli Girls, and the Latest Success of a Girl Resisting the Draft

17 Tammuz, 5780 °°  July 9, '20

Parshas Pinchos


By Binyomin Feinberg


feinbergbinyomin@gmail.com



"... And if someone, like Pinchos, is one among a multitude, and every man is against him when he dares to speak out for truth and to fight for the Law -- the more lonely his stand, the greater the number of his adversaries, the more powerful is his word, the mightier his deed."

--  Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch OB"M (1808-1888), (in "Judaism Eternal," vol. 2, p. 293)


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Here's the update link for the month of Tammuz to check in case we post during the week between our regular Wednesday/ Thursday posts:


https://docs.google.com/document/d/19P6537IM3H-v_UlYsRzeiukw9uBWq3M0GjaoYJhIQUk/edit?usp=sharing


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###  GOOD NEWS:  ###

1.  Appropriate to parshas Pinchos, B"H, Hadassah Margolit bas Miriam Y. (20 y/o), a religious girl from an immigrant Bucharian family, was finally freed from Israeli Military Prison Four on Monday, July 6, after almost a month of incarceration. Her imprisonment and mistreatment was accompanied by relentless protests in Israel (and one in NYC). She was held in wake of her steadfast refusal to submit to the military draft.  We've been following her case (e.g. see https://firstamendmentactivist.blogspot.com/2020/07/every-refusenik-matters.html) since soon after Israeli military police barged into her her home - at about 3AM early Thursday June 11 - to arrest her, for the "crime" of adherence to the Torah, which prohibits girls from enlistment in the military, to the extent of sacrificing one's very life if necessary.

Miss Y. endured physical,  psychological, and religious mistreatment at the hands of Military Prison officers.  That was all in addition to the sexual mistreatment to which she was initially subjected; they took away her skirt and forced her to wear pants [even in public] for almost two days. (Recall that these are the same cast of characters who grandstand about "Equality," even gracing Israel's south with all-female tank crews (JNS), ostensibly to protect against enemies.)

2.  If this mistreatment of girls - religious or otherwise - is the price of having ostensibly religious Knesset members on the receiving end of government largesse, then the one thing that should scare us more than an Israeli government filled with Chilonim is one filled with purportedly religious and Chareidi MKs.  Their overall (or "coverall," as my spellchecker phrased it) silence on the issue of the SYSTEMIC drafting, intimidating, terrorizing, mistreatment, and downright abuse of hundreds, even thousands of Jewish girls by "our own" (sic) is intolerable. If the broader religious Jewish public would know even a fraction of what the government and collaborating elements are covering up, they'd be in an uproar.

Therefore, the media cannot remain silent. True, properly researching these cases is often painstaking. (The military draft office and collaborating parties do their best to ensure that.) However, exposing the systemic persecution of religious and traditional teenage girls by "Maitav" (the Israeli Army entity under which the Draft Office operates) is absolutely vital for Jewish continuity, to ensure that spiritual survival of future generations.  Girls who fall into the morally corrosive military environment generally don't come out capable of building healthy homes, and properly raising Jewish families.

3.  Furthermore, we know that in the merit of righteous women we were redeemed from Egypt (Talmud tractate Sotah 11b), and that in the merit of righteous women we'll merit the Ultimate Redemption (sefer Kav HaYashar). Drafting girls at that age into the notoriously promiscuous military sabotages the natural process of raising righteous Jewish women.

Accordingly, on a deeper level, the draft actually impedes the Final Redemption. And those courageous individuals who stand up and fight these evil designs against Jewish girls and women are helping expedite the Redemption. Perhaps their noble efforts, often undertaken in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, can be aptly qualified as "Raishis Tzemichas Ge'ulasinu."

Bad News: 

4.  The Israeli Draft Office is currently escalating their discrimination against religious girls who attended non-religious schools, as we'll explain shortly.

5.  Furthermore, and perhaps more ominously, the Rabbanut has reportedly started to themselves ask the girls which school they attend.

6.  That may appear innocuous to those unfamiliar with the process. However, even posing such a question alone constitutes a hazardous shift in what is supposed to be the military service *exemption* process. It's a slippery slope, leading to actual participation in the Selectzia process, whereby the Draft Office identifies girls to pursue, or persecute, with the aim of robbing them of their opportunity to avoid falling into the immoral and exploitive military.

7.  What is even more of a concern is that the Rabbanut thereby projects the appearance that they've lent their approbation to the female draft discrimination process by their own participation therein, albeit perhaps only in a token manner, at this juncture.

8.  Recent Changes for Girls who attended non-religious schools:

Recently, since around the time Coronavirus hit Israel, a number of girls have reported that in the process of obtaining their religiosity verification from the Rabbanut, they were asked by the Rabbanut which school they attended. These girls report subsequently being summoned by the Draft Office to show up for a Rayon Dat, without ever stepping foot into the Draft Office.

Until now, girls who were wise enough to comply with the Halacha, and refused to enter the Draft Office, were generally able to obtain an exemption without being summoned to a Rayon Dat. Now, avoiding entering the Military Draft Office no longer provides that same degree of security.

9.  Background: In the recent past, religious girls who attended non-religious schools, when identified as such, would often be targeted unfairly. The Draft Office had been summoning them to a Rayon Dat. A  Rayon Dat is a religiosity interview, or, more often, interrogation.  It's performed by a battery of trained military officers, intimidating a lone teenage girl; she is not allowed to be accompanied by anyone, not even a lawyer or family member.

10.  The Draft Office does this to dupe or pressure the girls into enlisting, or to find a pretext to challenge their religiosity, and thereby deny them their legal entitlement to a religious exemption from military service.

11.  Nevertheless, with the assistance of the appropriate organizations, the girls who had been fortunate enough to obtain the correct guidance would be able to avoid the Rayon Dat trap by sending in letters from Rabbis, or, at least, by sending the Draft Office firm letters from attorneys.

12.  However, lately, there's been a alarming turn. The Draft Office is no longer backing off in the face of intervention. Thus, they're, in effect, obligating these girls to hire an attorney. 

13.  For those who cannot afford to hire a lawyer, and don't have a sponsor, there are two "options:" enlist (which is absolutely prohibited, on pain of sacrificing one's very life, as articulated by prominent Rabbis, see Yoreh Daiyoh 157:1) - or face the spectre of being terrorized by the Draft Office, with the threat of arrest and Military Jail.  According to Jewish Law, these girls have no choice but to stand up - even if all alone - and fight.

14.  Against whom are they defending themselves? None other than the Israeli Military Draft Office, the Military Police, the Military Prison System, and the Military Justice System. And they need to do all of this without a lawyer. Of course, procurement of an attorney for such a girl in need is absolutely incumbent on anyone else who can help facilitate that.

15. Such heroic individuals certainly are reminiscent of the timeless words of Rav Hirsch, relevant to this week's Torah portion (quoted above):

"... And if someone, like Pinchos, is one among a multitude, and every man is against him when he dares to speak out for truth and to fight for the Law -- the more lonely his stand, the greater the number of his adversaries, the more powerful is his word, the mightier his deed."

--  Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch OB"M (1808-1888), (in "Judaism Eternal," vol. 2, p. 293)