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URGENT IDF DRAFT ARREST ALERT: 

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24-Year-Old Religious Woman Arrested - In Wake of a Secretarial Error 8 Years Ago

By Binyomin Feinberg

5 Nissan, 5781 °° March 18, '21  Parshas VaYikra

Breaking News from Ben Gurion Airport, Israel: At about 12AM Israeli time tonight, Wednesday night, a 24-year-old Breslover woman, Efrat, from a Chareidi family of Beitar, was arrested at Ben Gurion Airport by Civil Police. A clearly Chareidi Seminary graduate, she was arrested in the wake of what many would deem a trivial error by a high-school secretary about eight years ago.

According to an Israeli activist who spoke with her during her arrest process tonight, this young woman claims that, as most religious girls do, she obtained her religiosity certification ("Tatzhir Dat") from a Rabbinical court at age 16. Standard procedure had been that many schools would send the documentation in to the Israeli Army Draft Office, to secure religious exemptions for their students. (At that time, serious complications for religious girls were almost unheard of.)

At that time, someone in the office  apparently erred in delivering her "Tatzhir Dat" to the Army. About a month ago, in response to being alerted by the Draft Office about her unresolved draft status, Efrat spoke to the Jerusalem Draft Office personnel (on Rashi St.). Efrat reported that the response she received from the Draft Office (D.O.) was that "that this type of mix-up happens." They understood she's Chareidi, and legally entitled to a military service exemption. The D.O. thus directed her to simply redo her Tatzhir Dat.

However, in the wake of Corona-related complications, that didn't occur yet. Now, she had understood from the D.O. that resending her certification was nothing more than a technicality, and certainly not a major issue, even for the draft officers themselves. Therefore, she didn't abstain from travel. 

She was arrested tonight on her way to Uman, Ukraine. She, like many Breslover chassidim, travel to Uman, conditions permitting, to pray at the burial site of the world-revered Rav Nachman of Breslov OB"M. 

She is expected to have a military court hearing within a matter of hours. We hope a vibrant protest will grace the occasion.

The same government-collaborative Chareidi MKs who have been pandering for Breslover votes lately should never have allowed the draft crisis to get to this point. Let's see if they'll do anything useful for this young woman.

¥¥¥ Perspective: ¥¥¥

Tonight, Efrat embarked to the airport intending to serve HaShem by visiting Uman. Clearly, HaShem has other plans for her. For every hour she languishes in incarceration, her spiritual contribution to the Jewish People will likely surpass by far whatever she could have accomplished in Uman. For one, this arrest could draw attention to a number of burning issues pertaining to the ongoing escalation of military draft harassment of religious girls, which most of the media have been ignoring. These include various issues already covered by Israeli media (often censored by faux-news venues) such as:

1. The Israeli Army's declared goal of reaching 40% Army enlistment by Mizrachi-type (zionist-oriented) high-school girls;

2. the abuse of the "Rayon Dat" (religiosity interrogations) - to force or otherwise manipulate religious girls into enlisting in the Army;

3. the dramatically caustic effect of Army life on the religiosity of girls, recently reported by an Israeli government Statistics agency,  considered authoritative by the government itself; [This refutes the Army and Supreme Court contention that military service doesn't contradict a religious lifestyle for girls.]

4. the jump in reports of sexual abuse within the Army last year (Israel HaYom, Feb. 12, 21); [That jump - of over double the previous year - dispels the argument that these are just false accusations, because it's extremely unlikely that that massive jump could be attributed soley to a steep jump in false accusations.]

5. rampant immorality within the Army, and official IDF facilitation thereof, via free Army birth-control and abortion "services" geared toward perpetuating said prohibitions (issurei korais);

6. aggressive Israeli Army attempts to convince girls to forego their exemptions AFTER obtaining them;

7. "Aluma" and it's deceptive crusade to enlist religious girls in the military, under the veneer of operating as an organization ostensibly independent of the Israeli Army;

8. a multitude of individual cases of harassment, abuse and persecution of Jewish girls - perpetrated by the Israeli Army, Draft Office, military and civilian Police, Military Prisons, & Courts, many of which have been reported in The Jewish Press or in other pro-Israel venues;

9. IDF faking of statistics of female religious enlistment (as well as Chareidi male enlistment).

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Regarding this particular incident, unless we're missing some major part of the story, there was apparently nothing here mandating an arrest. This situation didn't call for arresting a young woman at the airport, even according to the Israeli police standards. To arrest an unquestionably Chareidi woman - over what's essentially a technical error of a school secretary about eight years ago [clearly not her fault] - is aberrational. It may even be seen by some (accurately or not) as an opportunity to vent ascendant antireligious sentiment, festering around the election campaign. By others, this may be taken as a specific jab meant to target Breslover chassidim, who've lately complained vocally about unfair treatment from the government.

Whatever the case may be, the very occurrence of this type of  arrest reveals a systemic flaw that allows for many such over-the-top arrests of innocent girls and women - precisely where it's least needed and least appropriate.  What's far more important to highlight here is that this type of overdone law-enforcement is generally followed by robust crime-enforcement -- by Israeli military prison authorities.*

[* replete with abuses competitive with the human-rights paradigms of some of the other countries who similarly force girls to serve in the military (such as in vicinity of the Korean Peninsula).]

Those familiar with this column may recall multiple girls and young women who were subjected to all manner of physical, emotional, psychological, and physical abuse in Military Prison Four and Six, as well as at Tel HaShomer.

This incident also highlights another ongoing, national travesty. The Israeli Army refuses to safeguard the basic rights of Israeli citizens by requiring that the  Draft Office inform each and every girl if and when their military service exemptions are processed. If the Israeli government would employ even minimal concern for individual rights, this policy would be put into practice. It's not. Consequently, many Israeli women find themselves facing arrest and military prison in the wake of their religiosity certification documentation "not being received" by the Army Draft Office (or due to claims of such).

In this case, the primary injustice is not unjust or lopsided application or enforcement of the law; it's the inherent corruption of everyday Army policy that leads to many such incidents. This, and many, many other aberrational excesses, are manifestations of the secularist, statist orientation of Israeli Military. In the secularist- dominated State, individuals have few rights against overreach by the behemoths of the State.  This sense of entitlement extends to non-citizens as well; case in point: N.D., a volunteer from France, brutally betrayed by the Israeli Army, who is now persecuting her by keeping her captive in Israel, while illegally threatening her with arrest, see "IDF: Israeli Document Forgers?" (http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2021/03/idf-israeli-document-forgers.html).

Another illustrative example [from June '19]: Orah Chaya & Moriah Leah R., Bnos Beruria:  https://daattorah.blogspot.com/2019/07/wonderful-opportunities-for-public.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FIjWSM+%28Daas+Torah+-+Issues+of+Jewish+Identity%29 

( https://www.dropbox.com/s/sct41kbjry0ph5m/BS.docx?dl=0 )
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Efrat's exact whereabouts at the moment aren't known. She could potentially be incarcerated in the new Military Prison Ten. Prison Ten is the state-of-the-art, 300-bed incarceration facility in the Netanya area, not far from Tel Aviv. This massive, very expensive prison was completed just recently.*

[* Apparently that "investment" was prioritized, despite the competing requirements to meet unprecedented threats the Israeli government is now facing from Corona, Iran, the North, cyber attacks, qualitatively escalating military technology - especially precision missile capacities - in enemy hands, and hundreds of thousands of rockets being pointed at Israel.]

One concern over this "Mega-Prison" is that it enables the antireligious elements of the Israeli government to up the ante of religious persecution against religious refusenik girls and supportive protestors. Will some agenda-driven elements of the Justice system feel more leeway to employ yet more cruelty in sentencing such types of "enemies of the People," now that logistics are barely an impediment?  In the recent past, there have generally been several dozen girls languishing in Israeli military prison at any given time. A substantial portion of those are incarcerated due to objections to serving in the Army. Do the powers-that-be have their sights set on elevating those terrible numbers?

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Background:

The Israeli Army forces its female citizens to serve in the military. It's been doing so in flagrant violation of Torah law, for about 70 years. All leading Rabbis from across the spectrum prohibit girls and women from enlistment in the military. Leading Rabbis have even deemed refusal to enlist as Yaihoraig v'Al Ya'avor, a prohibition we're obligated to sacrifice our lives to avoid.

The Israeli Army is also known for abusive treatment of women and girls, for decades. Moreover, the Torah objects to more than just non-consensual misconduct. Sinful conduct between consenting adults is similarly liable for korais, or worse. 

According to the Torah, we ought to be advocating against the Israeli military draft for ALL women. Now it's more vital than ever to push to exempt all girls and women from being forced into military service, and making that case on Torah grounds - as well as military readiness reasons. Torah authorities that should be cited include the Brisker Rov ZT"L who opposed non-religious girls serving in the Army even more vociferously than religious girls doing so, as Rav Aharon Soloveichik ZT"L quotes him.

If we would actually follow through on this one approach, we'd diffuse much antireligious animus, while gaining important allies in undermining support for the female military draft. (Obviously, we'd automatically dispense with the entire Rayon Dat problem in one fell swoop, without succumbing to the desire to fix the unfixable.)

If someone argues that we ought not tinker with the status of nonreligious girls out of fear that the Army Establishment will pursue "our girls," they should be informed that the Establishment has been pursuing "our girls" well before we made a public issue of helping save nonreligious girls from military service. Their problem may lie in the Cantonist Syndrome, treating anyone not part of their clique as expendable, "collateral damage," if you will.

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Some background on the escalating role of women in combat roles in the IDF:

"The IDF is one of the only armies in the {Western -BF} world in which women are drafted to military service by law. Women have served in the Israeli army ever since its establishment in 1948. At first they served mainly in administrative jobs or as instructors in a variety of fields, but they gradually moved into operational positions due to both a shortage in combat soldiers and demands of Israeli feminist groups. According to Ha'aretz, the number of female combatants has more than doubled in recent years. In 2012, 3 percent of women in the IDF served in combat positions. Four years later, in 2016, the percentage more than doubled to 7 percent—and it will likely continue to rise." (https://www.lawfareblog.com/female-service-idf-challenge-integrated-army)

Its important to identify the vital role played by radical leftists in America in compounding the Israeli female draft syndrome, by adding western "Equality" to the pre-existing female military draft milieu. The escalation of women enlisting in fighting units in Israel corresponds to the ascension of Equality lunacy in America under Obama. The Obama era saw the advance of the most extreme moral subversives, who did grave moral and material damage to the American Armed Forces, as they did to American society at large. This is not to absolve the amoral and immoral leftists of Likud - at all - over the worst escalation of drafting girls Israelis have ever seen, which they've perpetrated in recent years. However, they had a lot of help from leftists overseas.*

(* Of course, Divine Justice is "inclusive" enough to provide amply for all involved parties, who would each qualify for iniquity-specific manifestations of Divine intervention - in accordance with the timeless principle of "Measure for Measure.")

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feinbergbinyomin@gmail.com

"... 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), (writing on Pinchos, and those who follow his lead, in "Judaism Eternal," vol. 2, p. 293)

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