Jerusalem – Hundreds of haredi men belonging to the extremist Jerusalem Faction group have taken to the streets of Bnei Brak and Jerusalem once again to protest several relatively lengthy jail sentences by a military court against several yeshiva students who have illegally evaded IDF service.
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The protestors blocked major roads and junctions in both cities, bringing traffic to a halt intermittently.
The police are continuing efforts to remove the protestors from these roads, and have arrested at least 20 men so far in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak.
Extremists in Beit Shemesh also succeeded in shutting down some roads in the city.
“Thousands of yeshiva students are on their way to traffic arteries around the country with clear intent to sanctify the name of Heaven and be imprisoned for a lengthy period of time,” the Jerusalem Faction said in a statement to the press before the protests began.
“Nothing will break their courageous spirit in their struggle agains the decree of enlistment of yeshiva students.”
The Jaffa Military Court sentenced 11 yeshiva students who failed to undertake the necessary bureaucratic process required to obtain an IDF service exemption to sentences of up to 90 days in prison.
These sentences are much higher than have been seen in the past and are possible an attempt to curb the phenomenon of yeshiva students who fail to do apply for their exemption in the correct manner.
The Jerusalem Faction and its leader Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach has instructed yeshiva students associated with it not to cooperate in any way with the IDF or the Defense Ministry, leading to a situation in which hundreds of its students are now technically absent without leave and liable to arrest by military police.
Mainstream haredi yeshiva students do perform the requisite bureaucratic procedures to obtain their exemptions and anyone so doing is promptly given their exemption.
The stance of the Jerusalem Faction and its leadership is for the most part a tactic in the internal political divisions within the Ashkenazi haredi non-hassidic community, in which Auerbach lost a leadership battle with the current head of this community Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman in 2012 after the death of the previous leader Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv.
Its more hardline stance of not cooperating with the IDF and Defense Ministry has helped the Jerusalem Faction carve out a political block and given itself a specific identity around the rallying cry of fighting the state’s efforts to draft more haredi men into the army.
Claims by Auerbach and the heads of the Jerusalem Faction that haredi men are being coercively drafted into the army are however fallacious, and haredi yeshiva students applying for an exemptions continue to receive them without hinderance.
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Why water? a few bullets to the legs will do the trick.
Torah is the ikur, Zionism us on its deathbed
If they would spray them with sewer water like they did a few weeks ago this madness would stop.
The army should use rubber bullets on these idiots. AND then jail their so called Rabbi leaders
This is a disgrace to torah true Judaism. On par with the sicko neturei karta
Bitul Z’man! These clowns are supposed to be learning! Put them in jail together with those convicted of draft dodging. If they want the sentences suspended, they need to surrender their Israeli passport at the airport when they use their one-way ticket elsewhere! Dina d’Malchusei Dina!
Just another enemy of the IDF.
The problem with these kids that they think that “their” Torah protects the “jewish land” so they dont need to serve in the heretic IDF which is Zionistic itself. Hard to figure it out.
agree to professor no. 5. Dina demalchusa dina – and if they don’t like it , they should be deported and not allowed back into country till they obey its laws
Chanuka is coming. The misyavnim, or Hellenists, were the Zionists of their day.
Whether or not these protests are correct, the message behind them is sorely understated:
The Zionists are enemies of the Jews and “al tig’u biMshichai uVinviai al tarei’u” – the Zionists should leave alone the Jews and stop attempting to shmad them. The Zionists neither want nor need the frum Jews in their heretical and anti-Jewish cultural “melting pot” of an army, and this is simply shmad.
It is also shocking that any Jew could wish harm on these young men, misguided or not.
If the Zionists would simply leave the frum Jews alone (no shmad registration where they intentionally have female doctors, etc.), none of this would go on.
May Hashem watch over and protect all His children.
Aurbach should rot in jail .HE’S CERTAINLY NOT A GODOL or a talmid chochom as it’s written” talmidei chachamim marbim shalom baolam.”
I carefully looked at the photos. They are kids not men. Treat them like the children that they are. Take away their lollipops .
Laugh at them. Offer them ice cream if they just move over…
Kids!!!
The army should use rubber bullets on these idiots. AND then jail their so called Rabbi leaders
This is a disgrace to torah true Judaism. On par with the sicko neturei karta