Anti-Draft Demonstration Retrospective

Last week’s Haredi demonstration against the drafting of their youth into the IDF was, for many people a chilul hashem, a desecration of God’s name, while to others it was a proper act of defiance in a democracy that purportedly values the right of free speech for all its inhabitants. Whatever one’s feelings, the question is what’s next in this long running dispute that has roiled this country ever since Ben Gurion made the decision to exempt 400 yeshiva students from military service.

Some thoughts about the demonstration may give us some idea of where this can go from here.

If People Choose Not to Serve

I believe that everyone has an obligation to serve either in the IDF or do national service.   I felt that was true even when I was growing up in America and am proud of my active duty service as an officer in the US Army reserve and the following five years of miluim.  Nevertheless, if people refuse to serve perhaps there should be a penalty other than incarceration.

For example, the Swiss have mandatory military service but if people choose to opt out, they are charged CHF 400 (USD 500) per year for 11 years or about $5500.  Israel’s goal is to get to the point where it drafts about 9,000 men from this segment of the population each year, which means that community would have to pay $4.5 million to the government each year for 11 years for each year’s cohort.  Expanding that to the point where at any given time there will be 11 cohorts paying there would eventually be $50 million coming into the government’s coffers each year. Those numbers may well be sufficient to convince the Charedi leadership that having 9,000 of their youth join the IDF each year may not be such a bad thing after all.

Charge the Community for Demonstration Related Costs

There have not yet been any estimates related to the cost to the State of Irael resulting from last week’s demonstrations.  No doubt when one adds together the cost of additional security people allocated to keep order at the entrance to Jerusalem (i.e. the demonstration location), or of disruptions caused by the demonstration and the cost of setup and cleanup of the area, the number will be significant. Perhaps the government should charge those costs back to the Charedi community and reduce this year’s allocations to them accordingly.  After all why should those of us who were inconvenience by all of this also have to bear the costs associated with the demonstration?

How This Was Different than Demonstrations Against Judicial Reform?

No doubt some people will respond by asking how this anti-draft demonstration differed from the demonstrations in 2023 against the proposed judicial reforms proposed by the government?  It is a reasonable question with a logical answer.

The judicial reform demonstrations, which were also examples of the citizenry’s right to free speech, were organized to block changes in the law that half of Israel found objectionable.  However, the anti-draft demonstration of last week and other similar ones before that, we against being penalized for not obeying laws which were already passed and upheld by the Israeli Supreme Court.

There is no reason in the world why the government should have to bear any of the expense associated with such demonstrations.   The fact that they are permitted and allowed to disrupt the rest of the country is, in itself, a testament to our democracy.  Nevertheless, there is no need for it to cost the government large sums of money in order to facilitate demonstrations in support of those who wish to disobey the law.

Moving Forward

The bottom line in all of this is that (a) the country needs a larger source of recruits for the IDF; (b) everyone should feel an obligation to serve; (c) the growth of the Charedi community means that they will become an ever larger part of the whole; and (d) if the issue is not resolved eventually the recruitment pool will shrink to where it is no longer sufficient to ensure the defense of Israel.

We dare not let ourselves get to that point and we really are smart enough to figure out how to make sure that does not happen.  The only question left to answer is: How can such smart people let such a potentially damaging situation continue unsolved?

The Charedi community needs only to follow the guidelines of the Torah which specify the several categories of men who are exempt from military service (e.g., a man who has built a new house, planted a vineyard, or just married). However, the Mishnah and subsequent legal codes, including Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, clarify that these exemptions apply only to a milhemet reshut (a discretionary or optional war, such as a war for territorial expansion).

In a milhemet mitzvah, which includes a defensive war to rescue the community from an attacking enemy, all physically capable individuals are required to participate. The Sages taught that in such a war, “everyone goes out, even a groom from his chamber, and a bride from her canopy”. This highlights the existential urgency and communal obligation associated with the defense of the Jewish people.

It is time the Charedi rabbinate followed the Torah in practice as well as in theory.  The country deserves nothing less.