At Haredi rally, Yesh Atid MK assails ‘parasites’ reading psalms against the IDF

By Sam Sokol 14 August 2025, 10:06 pm

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. 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"

Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern, right, attends the scene of an ultra-Orthodox rally against the arrest of draft-dodging yeshiva students outside of the military prison at Beit Lid, August 14, 2025. (Sam Sokol/Times of Israel)

Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern arrives at the ultra-Orthodox anti-conscription rally at the Beit Lid military prison to “see for myself the people who say that if they go to the army, they will be going to hell.”

“They’re parasites,” the former chief of the IDF Personnel Directorate tells The Times of Israel. “They are reciting psalms that we read against our enemies, but saying them against the army.”