Jerusalem – During the four weeks of Operation Protective Edge, the haredi community’s attitude toward the IDF softened considerably, with many expressing their support for the soldiers in Gaza. But on Thursday, an editorial in the largest-selling haredi daily newspaper, Yated Ne’eman, spoke out fiercely against that sense of closeness and solidarity with the army.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
There were numerous supportive initiatives from the haredi world during the conflict: Yeshiva students would “adopt” soldiers to pray for by name, the haredi leadership called to recite prayers in synagogues for the well-being of the Jewish people, and several initiatives provided food and provisions for soldiers.
Some married yeshiva students even (anonymously) declared the war a Torah-mandated conflict and said they were seeking to enlist in the IDF, calling on others to do so as well.
However, the Thursday editorial said that while the solidarity during the war was fitting and appropriate, this should not have any impact on how the haredi community related to the IDF and secular society in the long term.
“This must ring a spiritual ‘red-alert’ warning,” the paper warned.
Yated Ne’eman is the mouthpiece of the mainstream non-hassidic haredi political movement Degel Hatorah.
“This confusion must not penetrate inward,” it continued, and spoke out against what it described as attempts to recruit haredi boys into the army during the operation.
“The unceasing efforts to change us became even greater during the war. The attempt to cynically exploit the emergency situation by digging spiritual terror tunnels must be rejected and expelled,” the editorial stated. It cited the haredi conscription law that passed in March as evidence of attempts to change haredi society.
“At this time when they are trying to coerce us, we must seal every crack and strengthen the weak who are more likely to be tempted,” the article read. “We must raise the walls…. Contact and connection between the haredi camp and the secular is treif [non-kosher], especially at a time like this.”
Shahar Ilan, the deputy director of the Hiddush religious freedom lobby group, said that the article was a reaction by the haredi leadership to sentiment within the community that it felt had gotten out of hand.
He said there was a clear change in the way the haredi community had reacted to Operation Protective Edge compared to previous conflicts, and he ascribed these changes largely to the increasingly pervasive presence of the Internet in the community and ready access to it via smartphones and other devices that, despite great opposition, many haredim use.
“The haredim built huge fences to prevent the population from knowing what happens outside of it, and now the Internet allows every haredi person to know exactly what is happening,” Ilan said. “You cannot now prevent an 18- or 19-yearold haredi boy from knowing that secular or national-religious boys of his age are risking their lives for the country.”
Ilan also expressed optimism that the haredi experience during the war would lead to an increase in haredi enlistment.
Yisroel Cohen, a journalist with the Kikar Hashabbat haredi news website, said there was no doubt that the community had reacted differently to Operation Protective Edge than to previous conflicts. He cited the publication of pictures and biographies of fallen soldiers in the haredi online news media, and the unprecedented decision to delay the end of the yeshiva semester so that the students could continue praying and studying as a merit for the soldiers.
“It’s possible now that the leadership feels that a balance must be brought about, though,” Cohen said regarding the Yated editorial. “The rabbis perhaps feel that too much of a connection has been made, and that needs to be rebalanced out with this kind of message.”
Cohen also noted the impact of a series of articles in a rival haredi daily, Hapeles, which warned that the real enemy are those who wish to harm the spiritual well-being of the Jewish people, meaning secular Israeli society and those who seek to draft haredi yeshiva students into the army.
Hapeles is the mouthpiece of the hardline Bnei Torah political movement which has in recent years competed with Degel for influence and control over the non-hassidic haredi world. Cohen said that the uncompromising attitude of the newspaper and the Bnei Torah movement even during the war could have dragged the mainstream leadership into a more hardline position resulting in Thursday’s editorial.
Content is provided courtesy of the Jerusalem Post
What a sick editorial at a time like this
And here we go again – from dumb to dumber. Notice how the tired drum of blame on the Internet and smart phones continues to beat. This paper embarrasses me. The rockets stop and we go back to sinah and decisiveness? Hellooooo!
Hopefully, this editorial is a leftover Purim spiel that some mindless reporter mistakenly published for the special Shabbos Nachamu edition. However, if this is real, someone should publish the GPS coordinates of the editorial offices of Yated Ne’eman v’hamavin yavin.
Soldiers for humanity are not trained by reclusive limits on their exposure to changing social needs. If the Yated and ultra-chassidic communities really want G-ds favor, I would think that the idea of putting shackles on Jacob’s dreams would be treason on its presence. Less to say that there will be no redemption of Israel’s “elite” culture if the culture eliminates pain to choose a head in the sand.
Jacob was not an ostrich.
This is not jewish.
Grossly irregular.
Get yated… get shaded… life is not unoccupied guilt.
Yated is like the New York Times with a pipe.
Giving the world all the news that is fit to spit at.
Corruption is not destiny.
Gone from my subscription list!
I considered myself chareidi until today. No longer. Fear and tremble before the Borei Oilem, these bums (trying to control my anger here) most certainly do not.
The editors should go live in Gaza. It is only the IDF that keeps them safe from the rashaim there.
HOW INAPPROPRIATE…even though im litvish the paper gets sicker by the day…
its insane….i cant understand the sense of it.
And this is why this past Tisha’a B’av is not the last Tisha’a B’av for which we will be in Aveilus.
What’s so amazing to me is the fact that during the Jewish war 1,944 years ago leading up to the destruction of the temple, it was the Sadducees who caused it, this time around it’s the “Chareidim L’Dvar Hashem” who cause all the Sinas Chinam amongst Jews. Maybe there’s a reason they don’t teach history…….?
Is this das toire?. Is this what learning toire in yeshiva brings about?Is this the same torah of Rabbi Akiva Does ve’ahvtal;reacha k’mocha or kol yisrael aravim zeh lo zeh have any meaning to these heilige yeshiva loite?Is the blood of the yeshiva boys more red that the army boys
Who writes this junk ?
The writer of the editorial should be arrested for treason.
Disgusting articl
15 posters here get it.
But let’s go a step further. Nowhere does it say or imply that learning Torah protects Klal Yisroel from danger. This is a myth, perpetuated by the leaders of the Torah warehouses and their groupies. When one our neighbors is having a heart attack, we call Hatzala and a trained EMT arrives to help. We don’t Shteig on expecting another Blatt of Gemorah to clear up his arteries. This “modern” Kolel religion is not Judaism.
Funny how a Frum jew can also be an anti-semite.
EY is a free and democratic country. We may not agree with what that meshuganer wrote. However, we should be thankful that he has the opportunity to do so. In neighboring countries in the area, the writer would have his home invaded, and he would be dragged off, never to be seen again. When Saddam was in power, if one dared to criticize his regime, they were toast. In any event, I noticed that in this latest war, there were many tapes of IDF soldiers davening with Talis and Tephillen, near their tanks.
G-d, please protect us from the extremists in our mist. For them things are OK as long as as the soldiers that die or are wounded are not their children. They are out of touch with reality. It’s a shame that so many of their readers have been brainwashed.
We need a statement ASAP from the Agudah totally distancing themselves from this ridiculous editorial- but don’t hold your breadth. For an anti Soldier yom tefillah they could block off Manhattan to make a statement but for a sholom rally they hide it under a train tracks with very little advertisements.
Yated Ne’eman, Israel edition, has been off-the-wall for years. No normal person – including chareidim – puts much stock in what they write. It’s like the NY Post of the chareidi world – or maybe even the Enquirer.
The editors should have a refu’ah sheleimah bekarov.
I guess they can’t stand to see Achdus prevail. The primary thing that will bring Moshiach is harmful to them. Really pathetic!
The yated needs machlokes to sell the papers. What the internet is teaching the Jewish people is that the frum realize what the soldiers do for them and the soldiers are starting to realize that the Bnei Torah do appreciate them. Unfortunately this might not be good for the idiots who control the newspapers.
You can learn and learn until you are blue in the face but if you do not practice and LIVE what you learn than it is all meaningless and you are no more than an am ha’aretz!
Nebech, nebech, the rabbonim are TERRIFIED of losing their CONTROL over their flock. Many of us are PROUD of the Charedim that are using their siechel!
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE AHAVAS YISROEL – THE UNITY. IT’S THE YETZER HORA AT WORK!
No comment at all would have been a lot wiser. They have done more to harm the Chareidi position than the army could have ever done. What about hakoras hatov to those who save your life while risking their own?
And I Thought It Was Only Me…Go Figure…? I Was Right All Along…