Religious Israeli Political Parties: "Put up or Shut Up"

 BS"D 

Religious Israeli Political Parties: "Put up or Shut Up"

ANOTHER IDF-Refusenik Girl Languishes in Israeli Military Prison, In Wake of "Religious" Political Perfidy

Oct. 3, '22/ 8 Tishrei, 5783 (Parshas Ha'azinu)

By Binyomin Feinberg, former contributor to 'The Jewish Press'

Three days before the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, at about 4 AM Israeli time on Oct.2, a 20-year-old sefardic girl from near Jerusalem got a rude awakening, when she was hauled away to IDF Military Prison Ten (near Netanya). Her "crime:" compliance with the Torah prohibition against serving in the Israeli military. Unfortunately, in flagrant violation of Torah law (and, le'havdil, basic human rights norms), Israel drafts 18-year-old girls to serve in the immoral exploitative military environment.  Her draft date was November 19, 2020. Thus, according to the Israeli Army, she has been absent from for almost two years.  That carries significant penalties in Israeli Military Court. Consequently, Maital bas Tamar - experiencing her second military incarceration "al-Kiddush- HaShem" since early January 2021 - now ranks among the meritorious women of Israel who demonstrate by example the self-sacrifice ("mesiras-nefesh") the Torah demands of them - and of every one of us - to resist the abomination of drafting women into the Army.

Ever since the early days of the State of Israel, women serving in the Israeli Army has been prohibited in the most severe terms, by Orthodox authorities across the spectrum.  Leading Torah Sages went as far as to declare women serving in the Israeli Army a sin we're obliged to sacrifice our very lives to avoid - and to oppose. No Torah-true Rabbi would ever sanction such a thing (although, what and whom you will find espousing the very antithesis of the Torah - in the name of the latter - never ceases to challenge the performance acumen of the best Hollywood has to offer).

For several thousand years, forcing women to serve in the military has been shunned by the vast majority of civilization, even under the direst of circumstances. Apparently, even the most depraved among the nations recognized that if an enemy attack compels a country to draft its own mothers and daughters into military service, then it has inflicted on itself damage surpassing what any enemy could do. AT THAT POINT, what they then would "stand for" is not worth dying, fighting, or even living for. This is a lesson which perhaps pales in comparison to the pristine vision of the Brisker Rov OB"M. The Brisker Rov, an internationally venerated leader of Chareidi Jewry, shunned most domestic demonstrations against the Israeli government, due to concerns over protesters endangering their lives. However, he himself held of - and personally participated in - demonstrations against the drafting of girls into the Israeli Army, because that's a cause for which all Jews - not just the targeted girls - are obliged to risk and even sacrifice our lives, if need be - to resist.

The codifier of the Mishna (circa 200 CE), Rebbe Yehuda HaNasi, proclaimed, in part: "Yaish kon'eh o'lamoh be'Sha'ah achas," some merit to acquire their portion [in The World-to-Come] in a solitary, enviably-short span of time, by their intensity of devotion and sacrifice (see the inspirational paradigms cited in Talmud Avoda Zorah 17a, 18a and 10b). These refusenik girls provide living examples for each one of us to be ready to emulate, when called to do so. In this sense, they are our teachers, if we accept the challenge to become their "students."

Why are we here? WHY is this type of outrage even necessary to discuss? The political power of religious/ chareidi voting blocks has grown to the point where there should be no need blog about this, or to block traffic and inconvenience commuters (who need to get to work etc.) over such state-perpetrated, antireligious, misogynist persecution of innocent women protecting their personal purity. This type of arrest, and all others akin to it, should have been prevented with one phone call. In fact, the phone call should have been rendered obsolete by an across-the-board universal service-exemption for all women, religious or otherwise. In fact, the Brisker Rov declared the war against drafting ANY girl even more vital than ensuring the exemption for those boys who dedicate their lives to a career of toiling in Torah (as we've cited previously from Sefer Yelled Sha'ashu'im p. 348; cf. p. 350).

So, precisely WHY is it that, instead of safeguarding our most precious national treasure, one of the most spiritually dangerous places for "peripheral" Jewish girls to grow up is -- in the ostensibly Jewish State, which - "by law" - forces tens of thousands of Jewish girls and young women to serve in the only Mideastern co-ed military between Cairo and Tehran?

Is it not, in grave measure, due to the consistent dereliction of duty of the ostensibly religious/ Chareidi political parties who make sure to employ their increased political power in directions other than saving ALL women from the indignities of the military draft? Let it be known than any such "religious" Israeli political party that refuses to genuinely, publicly, consistently, and unequivocally push for a universal service exemption for ALL women is in truth NOT Chareidi, NOT religious, and not genuine. Period. Anyone who votes for such "religious" parties, as if they would be what they claim, should at least acknowledge his or her employment of "willing suspension of disbelief."

Let's daven for Maital bas Tamar and all those like her. If we can do harm, we can be far more effective in doing good.

Have an uplifting Yom Kippur and a Gmar Chasima Tova.

~~~

"... 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)

###