The Mistranslation that Gives Up the Ghost
Like my colleague, Rabbi Jonathan Muskat, who recently wrote on the subject in the Times of Israel, I have heretofore not publicly commented on the Haredi opposition to conscription of able-bodied yeshiva students from their community or even those young men not learning Torah full time into the Israel Defense Forces. The subject is too painful and infuriating, but as I personally never served in the IDF when I was a young man nor live in Israel (though I have a son who is currently starting his second year in the IDF) I refrained from writing on this topic.
As R. Muskat noted, the fact that the rabbinic leadership of an important segment of the American Haredi community, the Council of Torah Sages of Agudath Israel of America chose to wade into the Israeli controversy by meeting with the Israeli ambassador to the US and by issuing a public statement- a kol Korei- denouncing the proposed enforcement of the law to conscript eligible Haredi yeshiva students as “evil decrees” and calls on Jews to pray to have them nullified changes the calculus. This recent statement which echoes previous one with its hurtful language saddened me and hurt me as the ones that I have read in the past. There was, however, one word and its mistranslation in the English version (in my estimation, knowing how truly awful it sounded in English) caught my eye this time and requires full condemnation.
In the kol korei issued by Agudath Israel of America on August 20th, 2025 https://agudah.org/kol-korei-from-the-moetzes-gedolei-hatorah-of-america-it-is-a-time-of-distress-for-yaakov-but-from-it-we-shall-be-saved it states:
ולדאבונינו כבר גייסו מאות בחורי ישיבות לצבאם
ונמצאים כמה אברכים ובחורים בכלא
הצבאי
Note the word used is צבאם- “their army” instead of just the neutral “army” or “the IDF” (or what should more properly be written which is “our army”). In interviews and public statements Haredi spokesmen constantly tell other Israelis and their critics that they fully identify with the incredible sacrifice of the soldiers and their families and they appreciate everything that is being done, but that Torah study is what truly defends the Jewish people and brings success to the army. They note how much the haredi community is praying on behalf of the success of the IDF and for the well-being of the soldiers.
Yet here is the use of the most “distancing” language possible in relationship to the IDF, as if it is the Czarist army of the 1800’s.The army is referred to with disdain and contempt. The very army that protects the State of Israel and its people including all those living in the Haredi community and yeshivot is “their army”, a foreign entity to be treated as some “other”, as Jews referred to the antisemitic governments and the armies that they were often forced to serve in throughout modern Jewish history.
In contrast, in the English free translation published alongside it, the sentence reads:
Tragically, hundreds of yeshiva bochurim have already been conscripted into the army, and several avreichim and bochurim are currently imprisoned in military jails.
It is striking that in the English translation the phrase has been tempered and made neutral without all the negative connation that the original employed. Did the translators and the lay leadership of Agudah understand how damaging an accurate translation would fall on the ears of the average Jew and thus massaged the language?
The original phrasing is a slap in the face to all of the brave soldiers of the IDF and to the Jewish people as a whole. It is simply unacceptable, hurtful and meanspirited. Nothing less than a full apology for using this kind of rhetoric is the decent step that should be taken.