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)
.....
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
### 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)
