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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).
°°°
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).
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?
###
