BS"D
Making Saving Souls ("Hatzolas Nefashos") Great Again
22 Av, 5780 °° Aug. 12, '20 (parshas Re'aih)
By Binyomin Feinberg
The latest breaking news from Israel regarding the female military draft is mixed.
1.
Firstly, multiple girls encountering serious problems with the Israeli
Army Draft Office are, B"H (thank G-d), currently being assisted by
"Chomosaich" volunteers. This group includes girls whose scheduled
draft-dates are rapidly approaching. It must be emphasized that these
are girls whom volunteers have encountered prior to any arrest. However,
tragically, there are numerous girls languishing in Israeli military
prisons to whom we lack access, and about whom we have little if any
information at the moment. That situation must change if these girls are
to obtain the guidance they need to secure their rights and their
freedom. If non-Jews would be mistreating our sisters even one
thousandth as much as Jews are doing so in the Israeli military, and to a
lesser extent in the military prison system, there would be an
international uproar.
2. One girl currently receiving guidance, Cheiyn A., an 18 year-old from a national-religious background, initially applied properly for a religious exemption. However, subsequently, in the midst of the uncertainty pervasive during Coronavirus shutdown, she
was duped into enlisting into the Army. Thus, on Sunday, May 24, '20
(1 Sivan), between about 12 and 1pm, she signed up to enlist in the Army
at the Be'er Sheva Draft Office, thinking that she would be able to
serve on an ostensibly all-female base. The Army officer who took her
signature, to whom we'll refer as "A.," waited until after Cheiyn signed. After Cheiyn signed,
A. notified her, post facto, that she just signed away her own right to
secure a religious exemption from military service in the future.
Cheiyn claims she had been previously unaware of that important fact.
Thus, her volunteer spirit was met "in kind" with a rude awakening as to
whom she was dealing with. [The officer involved, A., was reportedly a
female approximately 21 years of age, of a height of approximately 160
cm, with slightly dark complexion and long black hair, and apparently of Yemenite lineage.]
It
should also be noted that even girls in ostensibly "all-female"
military environments are by no means totally protected from
inappropriate behavior and interaction of the genders.
3.
Subsequently, B"H, Cheiyn did reapply for her religious exemption,
obtaining another religiosity verification affidavit and sending it in
to Maitav. However, as of our most recent information, her
efforts have not yet borne fruit. Her draft-date R"L has been set for
August 18, next Tuesday, at which point arrest and incarceration in
military prison is a spectre many such girls face. However, awareness
of her plight in the Diaspora plays very much in her favor.
4.
Secondly, the Chareidi publication "HaPeles" recently publicized a
report by Chagai Amit in the "Di Marker" regarding a recent Israeli Army
initiative to expand National, Civilian ("Sheirut Ezrachi"), and
Military Service to include every Israeli boy and girl, including
religious and Chareidi girls and women - for a service period of between
one and three years. Government "benefits," of course, would be
provided. Those benefits would apparently help reduce the intensity of
opposition from certain sectors.
The
incremental steps the Army has taken over the past several years to
draft increasing numbers of girls, especially religious ones, indicate
that such a broad initiative would place many more religious girls in
grave danger of mandatory military and "semi-military" service, in the
long and intermediate term, if not in the short term.
Furthermore,
a universally applicable public-service law that would include girls
would also reveal one of the fundamental flaws in the approach of
allowing more vulnerable youth to be drafted without resistance from the
religious political parties - in order to secure protection for their
own cliques ("our own girls") from the Draft Office. That approach has
been taken by some in the Chareidi political milieu in recent years,
facilitating this radical expansion. That's because capitulation to
Maitav incrementalism is tantamount to handing the Army a blank check,
albeit via a post-dated one. By broadcasting that some lives don't
matter as much as others, it's just a matter of time before the Divide
& Conquer approach runs its course. Simply put, it's ultimately
self-destruction, albeit in comfortable installments. Silencing the
ongoing incremental encroachment of the Army in drafting "easy targets" -
including "periphery" girls - ultimately enabled the Israeli government
to get to this point. Even if the various religious communities would
somehow figuratively dodge the bullet this time, religious Jewry has
been communally put on defense, making it far harder to shift the battle
lines to fending off an ever-encroaching Draft Office.
5.
This ominous policy shift bears an eerie resemblance to a similar but
more constrained movement in the US, spearheaded by an 11- member "Heck
Commission," to promote a similar, three-track national /civilian
/military service initiative for American youth - starting, however, on a
volunteer basis. Is there a coordinated transatlantic effort afoot?
For those interested in further research, the Center for Military Readiness (www.cmrlink.org)
is one American organization that follows these issues, with an eye
towards the moral degradation of the US military, including the
misapplication of women's equality to the military milieu.
5.
Thirdly, over the past several weeks, many religious girls have been
ordered to appear for religiosity interviews/ interrogations, just
because they studied in non-religious schools, for whatever reasons (including lack of religious venues that meet their specifications).
6.
According to Chomosaich volunteers, and an attorney working with some
of these girls, the Draft Office is now rejecting the entreaties of
these girls even when accompanied with documentation establishing their
religiosity, including letters of known Rabbis, and even if formally
submitted via legal counsel. This documentation is being sent on top of
the "Tatzhir Dat" affidavit these girls normally submit, after attesting
to meeting legal religiosity requirements on penalty of purgery
(generally before a Rabbanut court).
7. As
we've reported previously, once the Army Draft Office (operating under
"Maitav") receives the Tatzhir Dat, the girl is legally entitled to an
automatic military service exemption - unless the Army has legitimate
basis to question her religiosity. Merely studying in a non-religious
school fails to meet that criteria; many religious girls study in
nonreligious schools (although that's increasingly hazardous, for
multiple reasons, one demonstrated by this recent Army trend). Thus,
Army policy is inconsistent with it's own regulations in summoning these
girls for a Rayon Dat, and holding their exemptions hostage to compel
them to comply.
8. Moreover, this legally-
and ethically-compromised manipulation of girls is not a means of
objective fact-finding. Rather, the Rayon Dat often serves as a means of
duping, convincing, intimidating or terrorizing girls (usually
teenagers below 18) into enlisting in the Army. Again, these girls,
sometimes not even 17, are expected to withstand - while alone and
unable to communicate with the outside world - honed interrogation
techniques, employed by trained military officers, seeking to draft
every suitable girl possible.
9. This latest
Army effort to enlist even more religious girls also raises the
question: why is it that antireligious elements vocally complain about
religious Israelis failing to pursue quality secular education - but
tolerate [and perhaps encourage] Draft Office discrimination against
religious girls who do exactly that? That inconsistency conveys the
impression that the Draft Office is exploiting secular educational
institutions, seeking a pretext to rob religious girls - by all means
feasible - of their legal rights to avoid the exploitive, morally
corrosive military environment.
10.
Interestingly, in an interview in Misphacha Magazine (of the week of
Va'Eschanon), outgoing Israeli United Nations Ambassador Danny Dannon
indicated that Israel would benefit by adopting the American Jewish
approach to Jewish Education, in teaching "Jewish traditions,"
"traditions" which - he acknowledged - Israeli schools - outside of
religious schools - fail to teach. This acknowledgement by a high level
Netanyahu official stands in contrast to the actual Israeli government
policy of robbing successive generations of Israeli children of our
priceless and timeless Torah heritage. In regards to our topic, this
intentionally dumbing down of millions of Jewish children hands Maitav a
yearly yield of thousands of more conscripts - teenage girls "not
religious enough" to merit protection from being forced into the
institution whose leadership unfortunately grants it the distinction of
being the largest open human-trafficking network in the Middle East.
~~~
May
we merit to transform the multitude of challenges we face into fruitful
opportunities to advance the true benefit of all, including
nonreligious girls as well, whose ongoing mistreatment in the Army
should never be ignored or forgotten.
~~~
"...
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)
....
Update link for the month of
Menachem Av to check in case we post during the week between our regular Wednesday/ Thursday posts:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KrmOMCITmo6QiE6r1n1jvniVpx6WiZVvyfMDXo_hJN8/edit?usp=sharing
