… can be something mere mortals bounce off of. Shlomi Eldar reports in AL Monitor on the reaction of the ultra-Orthodox of Israel when their own choose to enlist in the Israeli Army:
“Ronnie” started officers training in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Dec. 4. If he makes it through the rigorous course, in four months he will be commissioned as an officer. For him, it will be a victory over the ultra-Orthodox community that ostracized him and the family that threw him out of his home.
The young man, who asked that Al-Monitor not divulge his real name, is an ultra-Orthodox soldier. He is coping with a society that objects to military conscription and encourages its members to study the Torah and remain within the boundaries of the community. I called him late in the evening after his first day of training. “Yes,” he answered in a somewhat bashful tone, “I am the ultra-Orthodox yeshiva student who led to the establishment of the nonprofit organization helping soldiers like me who were thrown out of their homes for wanting to serve in the military.”
Ronnie told Al-Monitor, “Six weeks before my draft date, my mother informed me that if I do indeed go into the army, I would have to leave the house. When she understood that I was determined, she said, ‘Take your things and don’t ever come back.’ That’s what I did. I left with nothing and not knowing where I was going.”
Faith over family. I suppose we see this in the United States, but I have not on a personal level. One more paragraph:
“It’s an incredible story,” the founder of the organization told Al-Monitor, asking to be identified as “A.” About a year ago, he said, he came across a poster (a means of expression common in ultra-Orthodox communities) that had been making the rounds in the ultra-Orthodox community, condemning Ronnie. A., a religious man himself, asked around and found out that Ronnie was a young student at a yeshiva of the Lithuanian faction of ultra-Orthodox Jews that is the most extreme in its rejection of compulsory service in the IDF. “I found out that during his basic training in the Givati Brigade, the guy studied Gemara [a part of the Talmud] and had finished an entire treatise by the time he was inducted into the IDF,” A. recalled. “I thought this was a fellow who should be saluted, not ostracized.” The fact that Ronnie studied Gemara in the army made his community even angrier, A. said.
In another AL Monitor article, Mordechai Goldman, himself ultra-Orthodox, discusses their attitude toward the Israel Defense Forces (IDF):
… the attitude of the ultra-Orthodox sector toward the military is fascinating and contradictory. But before we approach this subject, it is important to distinguish between the various sectors within the ultra-Orthodox world with regard to the IDF. On one side are the factions associated with the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta court and Eidah Hareidis (an inner fringe group within the ultra-Orthodox sector). These groups strongly oppose IDF recruitment under any condition. On the other side are the Chabad Chassidic group and Shas circles, who have a more liberal, forgiving view of those who choose to serve in the army.
Between these two sides reside the majority of ultra-Orthodox Jews, who do not oppose the IDF for anti-Zionist motives. Instead, they do not enlist because they hold that while enlistment is very important, Torah study is even more so. Many ultra-Orthodox leaders argue that the yeshiva world is, in effect, a spiritual-religious front that is no less important than the military front. Thus, while there is ultra-Orthodox opposition to IDF conscription at any age, the greatest opposition is reserved for the recruiting of yeshiva students, generally aged 18-22. The ultra-Orthodox leadership operates under the axiom that the ultra-Orthodox public would cease to exist if not for the continued existence of the yeshiva world.
“But this argument is not the reason that the ultra-Orthodox sector as a whole does not enlist in the IDF,” ultra-Orthodox activist and attorney Rabbi Dov Halbertal tells Al-Monitor. “The real reason is the fear of the army’s secular influences on ultra-Orthodox youth. The army is a place that endangers the ultra-Orthodox way of life, and that is the reason that ultra-Orthodox Jews do not enlist.”
According to Halbertal, “The army is a social melting pot. An ultra-Orthodox Jew who enters the army will not remain the same person when he leaves. He will be more Israeli and less ultra-Orthodox. The ultra-Orthodox public guards its ethnicity and its identity. All ethnic groups would act this way in the face of such an existential threat.”
And thus they believe they have a reason to avoid required military service – because it would destroy their community. I could see that as a possible, if illiberal excuse, for simple preservation of the community, but I suspect that, much like the Amish, they think God has ordained their society as the most preferred, and at that point my sense of humor just leaves me.
Whether this attitude damages them politically is beyond me; nor do I know if they even care. Such communities tend to be insular and static, and while others are willing to protect them, they’ll survive – but if their protection goes away, what then?
