Where are our leaders?

1002: the accumulative number of days my children have spent in reserve duty.

That’s just one of the many numbers swirling around in my head.

Day 555 since the war began.

59 hostages in Gaza.

Over 12,000 miluimnikim [reservists] injured.

75% of miluimnikim have suffered financially.

70,000 hareidim (ultra orthodox) eligible for army duty who do not enlist.

These hareidim have the unwavering support of their rabbis and are lauded for their refusal to cave into any demands from the military.

In their passivity, the national religious parties are implicity supporting this debacle. It is an extremely depressing scenario: incendiary behaviour from hareidi rabbis is not challenged from my community – the national religious rabbis. They have lost their collective tongues. Where are they?

I can’t hear them. Where is unified dati leumi leadership?

We hear sporadic interviews from eloquent and passionate dati leumi personalities, but

why don’t our rabbinic leaders stand up as one voice and criticize this absurd reality, where the hareidi community are encouraged and paid to sit and study in yeshiva (even when we have proof that many with many are not learning at all) instead of serving their country in the army? Why don’t they criticize the policy of the Bayit Hayehudi and the Otzma Hayehudit parties who prop up policies that hurt their own communities?

Where are our spiritual leaders? We need a unified vision from the dati leumi world.

Rabbinic leadership – women and men in Torah leadership roles need to stand up and be counted – to support the State of Israel in our hour of need. We ask you to stand up and be heard in a unified voice , and say the hard truth. All of Israeli society – other than the hareidim – are buckling under the weight of reserve duty; students are finding it difficult to finish their studies; many miluimnikim have lost their jobs; many families are struggling to preserve their marriages and families.

We need an Eliyahu , to shout that message from the roof tops.

Where are you?