It was an emotional occasion. Lamentations were recited with weeping and pain, sitting on the ground, read last Tuesdays headline of the haredi newspaper Hamevaser. But this was not coverage of mass prayer services on Yom Kippur, the fast of the Ninth of Av or the passing of a great sage. Instead, it was about an issue the haredim find every bit as devastating and that sent them out into the street in a mass demonstration on Monday morning: the Tal Laws replacement. Next week is expected to be among the most dramatic ones that our political system has had in recent years. The hottest issue the haredi draft and equitable shouldering of the national burden will reach the boiling point with the submission of the Plesner committees conclusions. These conclusions could affect the law that is to replace the Tal Law, which the High Court of Justice struck down on the grounds that it was inegalitarian and unconstitutional. In recent weeks, the conclusions taking shape and the proposals raised in the committee trickled out. They have been a source of concern for haredi Knesset members and the haredi public, which has become particularly sensitive to words such as quotas and economic sanctions. It looks as though the conclusions will include the abolition of the automatic exemption for yeshiva students, and every haredi man who reaches the age of 18 will become eligible for benefits (in housing, for example) that will decrease every year until he reaches the age of 22. At that point, he will have to decide whether he is going to join the army. If he does, he will keep the benefits. If he does not, he will lose them. At the same time, the stipend that he receives from the yeshiva where he studied will decrease this is to encourage the yeshivas to send their students to the army. Also, as Israel Hayom reported, only 1,500 students defined as particularly diligent in their studies will be allowed to remain in yeshivas. This is only 20 percent of the group eligible for the draft in a given year, which is about 7,500 recruits. As a result, about 6,000 haredim will be sent into service, as compared with a few hundred haredim who serve in the army today. The length of army service for haredim will be eighteen months to two years, according to the specific track (such as the Shahar program, which allows haredi men aged 22 to 26 to serve in the army for a year and a half, and the Nahal Haredi units). Those who choose national-civil service will serve for 18 months. The question is how much it will hurt Those who are most disturbed by the topic are haredi MKs, who effectively took a vow of silence and even kept their parliamentary assistants and spokespeople from commenting on the issue. To date, it is not clear whether they have done so out of a desire to keep quiet about things that are taking place behind the scenes or simply out of helplessness over the fact that they are not partners on the committee (by their own choice), and so can have no influence over its results. It is also possible that they feel that Kadimas entry into the coalition has defanged them and turned them into a deterrent force. The official haredi position is that the haredi MKs oppose the committee and will not allow religious studies to be compromised in any way. MK Moshe Gafni of United Torah Judaism insisted, during a conversation with Israel Hayom, on not talking about the matter, saying only, I dont understand why the committee was established, and I dont know what its purpose is. Were not members of it. A law must be made thats what has to be done. But why the committee was established is not clear to me at all. We are in favor of Torah study because that is what keeps the nation of Israel strong. I hope that this will end well, that we will reach conclusions that everyone can live with. But even he admits that the conclusions are likely to be very difficult for the haredi population. Gafni is not the only one who sounds pessimistic. The prevailing opinion among the haredi representatives is that the conclusions and subsequent public pressure for the drafting of haredim will be hard for the haredim to take. Were going to get it. The question is how much its going to hurt, said a haredi faction member who did not hold back from criticizing his fellow faction members. Just this week, we realized that something bad was going to happen, that things were very bad indeed. We realized that the conclusions against the haredim, all the results that we feared, are going to happen. Theyre talking about quotas of young men who will be allowed to stay in yeshivas. Theyre talking about economic sanctions. It doesnt look good. He said that the decision to take no part in the committees work kept the haredi MKs up in the air. They didnt send anyone there, so what did they expect would happen? At the very least, they should have known what was happening. They have to solve a problem thats existed for the past 60 years in a month and without cooperation from the haredim. Can anything good come of that for the haredi sector? Not a chance. What they remembered to do over the past week was to sweeten the pill in hopes that it wouldnt be too late. In any case, it looks like the haredi public is asleep. Three thousand people went out into the street over the most dramatic thing that is being done against the haredim? In Emanuel, they moved heaven and earth over 20 people, and here, people are asleep and complacent. But not everybody agrees with that opinion. One high-ranking official from United Torah Judaism says that the MKs behaved properly. There is a channel of dialogue between Gafni and Zeev Elkin, between Uri Maklev and David Rotem. Nobodys being complacent. What has to be done is being done behind the scenes. The committee is going to have an influence whether were there or not, he continues. When the committee chairman, Yohanan Plesner, was chosen, we realized that he had been chosen for populist reasons. Its like having Michael Ben Ari as a commentator on Arab affairs. In any case, we realized that on a professional level, there was no reason for us to be there. The one who makes the final decision will be the boss, the prime minister, and thats where we need to put our efforts. Its all politics Shas officials are not upset by the committees intentions. They are convinced that members of Kadima in general, and particularly Yohanan Plesner and Shaul Mofaz, who is careful to speak about the topic, are trying to use this popular subject for political gain. But the reality will be the opposite. Interior Minister Eli Yishai commented, This is a deliberate act by the committee and the Finance Ministry to set numbers that, on the one hand, can never be met. On the other hand, the army has neither the desire nor the ability to meet them. The army will continue its policy not to draft the haredim because it simply cant, and on the other hand the Finance Ministry will make money from the sanctions that will surely come into play because the criteria cant be met. A significant process is going on in the haredi community as far as drafting haredim into the academic world and into the army, and that needs to be given incentive. He added, People are treading deliberately on the heads of the haredim, and the Finance Ministry has drafted a new member for its team, someone from outside, by the name of Plesner. The haredim promise that the real battle over the drafting of yeshiva students will begin the day after the committee submits its conclusions. Its not logical that the chairman of the Knessets Finance Committee, Moshe Gafni, would confirm sanctions against yeshivas. Theres still room to act, another senior official from United Torah Judaism said. The real war will take place in the legislative procedures. Meanwhile, the haredim are trying to exert influence on the decision-makers for example, Zeev Elkin and the prime minister. Last week, the MKs met with both of them and had several conversations about the topic in order to reach a formula that we can live with, as one MK said. But he says that the prime minister is no longer as sympathetic to them as he used to be. Its true that theres a well-known alliance between the haredim and the prime minister, but theres a new situation here. Theres a broad coalition and they can do without us. Kadima will want to show a big accomplishment done via Plesner and Mofaz, and above all this is about a law that has to pass in the High Court of Justice once more. The fear is that the prime minister will say that there is a limit to how much he is willing to intervene. However, he said that in the end, If something dramatic doesnt happen, we hope that there will be a conclusion that we wont vote for, but that well be able to live with. Quitting the government is a possible scenario, but neither side wants to end up there. The major assessment in Shas is that in the end, a compromise will be reached after an argument over the numbers. If there are logical goals regarding the number of young men to be drafted and if the sanctions arent too severe, it will be possible to arrive at something that all the sides can live with, a high-ranking party official said. Secular parasites The haredi media, meanwhile, has not remained mum, instead sharpening its message against the intention to draft the haredim. Nor did it wait for the mass demonstration that took place this week. During the demonstration, Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, one of the high-ranking rabbis of the Lithuanian haredi movement, said that there could be no compromise on the subject and that religious study fell into the category of laws regarding which one should be willing to die rather than transgress. Over the past several months, hardly a day has gone by without a sharply-worded essay on the subject. For example, the following appeared in an editorial that ran in Yated Ne'eman, the organ of the Lithuanian haredi movement. It seems that there were some fools in the secular political establishment and media who thought, naively, that the moment they suggested a series of 'brilliant ideas' such as the arrogant initiative to reduce the world of the Torah ... a call would go out in the yeshivas and their students would be called upon to prepare and consider well whether it might be better for them to leave the source of living water [a term for the Torah] ... to fulfill the arrogant aspirations of Lieberman, Plesner, Mofaz, Netanyahu and their cohorts. Menachem Klugman, the long-time commentator for the newspaper Hamodia, was even sharper in his article. He suggested that his readers move from defense to offense. He sought to explain the haredi position that the Torah and the yeshiva world keep Israel strong, while the secular people are the ones who ride on the backs of the haredim, who bow beneath the burden of the Torah. We are tired of the secular parasites who sabotage our merit in the Land of Israel. ... They are the leeches who nourish themselves from our merits and do not contribute to the general collection of merits by which we are saved and protected. In the world of the yeshivas, it is unlikely that visions of crowds of haredim putting on army uniforms will ever come true. Yitzhak Ravitz until recently the director of a network of yeshivas for married students is an activist in the yeshiva world and a son of MK Avraham Ravitz, who himself agreed to the Tal Law. The younger Ravitz told Israel Hayom: A dialogue between the deaf is going on, and I see no solution to it. A heavy-handed majority is trying to impose a different lifestyle upon a minority. They set up a committee to discuss how to share the burden, but they dont understand what the burden is. As far as were concerned, were the ones who shoulder the burden. Anyone who says that the haredim are parasites is terribly wrong. The burden is to study Torah. He said that in any case, it did not look as though haredim would be drafted en masse. Even a state that is capable of planning a military operation in Iran or taking thousands of Jews from their homes is incapable of imposing such a thing. A world view cannot be imposed upon a population. Its not a technical matter of joining the army or not. Its the imposition of a lifestyle.
Asked what he believed was the biggest danger surrounding the drafting of haredim, Ravitz said, The pressure that is going to be put on the prime minister and the fear that he will have difficulty withstanding it. I believe that the prime minister will not be able to go against the crowd, which demands that the haredim be drafted. It seems that they will have to go with a draconian law to placate the masses.
