BS"D
Drafting Non-Dati girls: Enemy of Outreach
by Binyomin Feinberg
4 Teves, 5780 °° Jan. 1, '20
Question:
In addition to all other considerations, if we're so interested in
Outreach ("Kiruv") - which we should be - why do we tolerate, even
support a policy that systematically tramples on the legitimate needs of
"non-Dati" girls for the same "automatic" exemption from Israeli
military service that we (some of us) demand for religious girls?
Forcing
girls into the immoral, exploitive military environment is one of the
most effective ways of harming prospects for effective Kiruv (for some
of the reasons that the girls are prohibited from enlisting to the
extent of yai'horaig ve'al ya'avor). The military environment takes a
heavy spiritual/ religious toll on many religious soldiers, men and
women. How much more so on those with a tenuous relationship with
Judaism, or worse.
it's of course
never too late for anyone who has a sincere desire to return to do so.
But what are the prospects that someone who spends two years (or two
weeks) in that promiscuous environment will opt to give up that
lifestyle of hefkairus?
Secondly, how do you
think those tens of thousands of non-"Dati" girls denied their
legitimate needs to avoid conscription - into a notoriously exploitive
military environment - feel about frum Jews? That we just care about
ourselves, even when we have increased political power massively since
the original draft issues arose about 70 years ago?
Especially
now, that the military is reneging on the initial status quo, and now
pursuing religious girls (of all strata) with brazen indifference --
what substantive pretext do we really have to remain silent about the
ongoing abomination of drafting girls of any type?
Previously,
some may have argued that those in Israel had sparse ability to
organize major protests over "non-Dati" girls because that would
endanger the protect status of religious girls. [In reality, the
argument initially probably was that, back in the early days of the
State of Israel, most of the nonreligious girls wanted to enlist, so
there simply weren't too many nonreligious girls for whom to fight. Now,
that's changed radically. Many of them do not want want to serve in the
military, for obvious reasons.]
That era
clearly ended, as has been especially evident over the last year or two,
under the faux rightwing government of Mr. Netanyahu. Religious girls
are no longer truly protected from conscription. [It's only a matter of
time for everyone to wake up to that "new normal."] And we have
reasonable expectation that that era will never return, especially with
the ascension of religious parties to positions of massive "kabbolas
tak'tzivim" (which we leave untranslated here). When Greed encounters
Creed, the outcome is generally predictable. And that's even where the
programs in question are totally legitimate.
We're now in the New
Exploitive Order, where no type of girl, with the apparent but temporal
exception of the politically connected communities, is safe from
military conscription. Thus, the argument for passivity that may have
possibly once existed doesn't anymore. To the contrary, perhaps if the
Maitav recruiters running after religious girls would realize that
they're helping foment a united front (of sorts) - with religious Jews
fighting for the nonreligious too - they'd step back, somewhat. Perhaps
they would realize that they're undermining their own cause by fueling
religious rage, via their antireligious focus on denying exemptions from
religious girls. Thus, there is reason to fight for exemption for all
girls even from a purely pragmatic perspective. So what are we waiting
for?
