Ex-chief rabbi: If Haredi draft dodgers arrested, ultra-Orthodox will leave Israel
‘If they come to yeshivas and arrest students… we will all go abroad,’ says Yitzhak Yosef, threatening a mass exodus for the second time
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
If the government arrests yeshiva students for dodging the draft, then the ultra-Orthodox community will be forced to leave Israel, former chief Sephardic rabbi Yitzhak Yosef threatened on Wednesday, following the launch of an IDF enforcement operation to detain people who ignored enlistment orders.
“If they force us to go to the army, the yeshiva students, if they come to yeshivas and arrest students [then] we have no right to exist here [and] we will all go abroad, we will not stay here,” Yosef said in a speech published by the ultra-Orthodox Kikar Hashabbat news site.
Declaring that “our Torah protects the soldiers,” Yosef argued that Israel’s anti-missile defenses only succeeded in blocking attacks in the merit of yeshiva students’ studies.
If secular politicians understood this, he continued, they would massively increase the number of Israelis learning full-time in yeshiva.
In a separate clip, broadcast by Channel 13 on Wednesday, Yosef could be heard stating that worried Haredi parents frequently contact him and he has to calm them down and assure them that their children will not be arrested.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly assured his ultra-Orthodox allies, who have threatened to topple the government if even one yeshiva student is arrested, that no such arrests are expected.
Yosef is the son of the late Shas party spiritual leader Ovadia Yosef and wields major influence with the faction, which is part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition.
This is the second time that Yosef has threatened a large-scale Haredi exodus from Israel over the enlistment issue. Last March, while serving as chief rabbi, he warned that ultra-Orthodox Jews would leave Israel en masse if the government ended exemptions of mandatory military enlistment enjoyed by the community.
“If they force us to go to the army, we’ll all move abroad,” Yosef said during a weekly lecture. “We’ll buy a ticket… We’ll go there.”
He subsequently claimed that his comments had been “distorted” and stated that “it is necessary to pray daily for the soldiers, who give their lives for the residents of this country.”
In June of last year, the High Court of Justice ruled that yeshiva students’ long-standing exemptions from military service had no legal basis. Since then, the army has sent out nearly 19,000 initial draft orders to Haredim, although only around 319 have actually enlisted.
Currently, approximately 80,000 Haredi men between the ages of 18 and 24 are eligible for military service and have not enlisted.
Yosef was later recorded telling yeshiva students that “if you receive a military enlistment order, tear it up, throw it in the toilet, and flush. Don’t consider it, don’t be afraid.”
Yosef is not the only Shas-affiliated rabbi to call for draft refusal. Last summer, Rabbi Moshe Maya, a senior member of the party’s Council of Torah Sages, told Kol Baramah Radio that it was “forbidden for those who don’t study to go to the army” because they would “end up violating the Shabbat.”
Under the law, someone inciting others to evade service during wartime is liable for a prison term of 15 years.
In April, Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman called on police to enforce this law against Haredi leaders, specifically calling out Yosef and Rabbi Dov Lando, the chairman of the Degel HaTorah party’s ruling Council of Torah Sages, among others.
In an open letter published this March, the 94-year-old Lando instructed yeshiva students to “not report to the recruiting office at all” after receiving summonses.
Lando is also a member of the board of the Vaad HaYeshivot (Yeshiva Committee) and is linked to the “Lema’ancha” (for your sake) organization, both of which run hotlines advising worried yeshiva students to ignore draft orders.
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