Eighteen-Three
The army desperately needs more soldiers... which makes Housing Minister Yitzchak Goldknopf's claims to the contrary disingenuous, dismissive, and cruel.
Our son Yaki is currently in an undisclosed location, living in a tank and working to save the people of Israel from those who would destroy them. He can occasionally communicate with us by texting on someone else’s phone; we cannot reach out to him, and anxiously await each communication.
He has told us that he and his unit are working on an “eighteen-three” system: that is, a break from his extremely difficult schedule for Friday and Shabbat once every three weeks.
A group of soldiers went to their commanders to ask if they could instead work on a “twelve-two” schedule, and go home every other Shabbat.
The answer was a sympathetic but definite no: there always must be a certain number of soldiers available and ready in the tanks, and there are not enough soldiers for this group to have every other Shabbat off. They would continue to have eighteen days on, followed by a Shabbat at home - and then back again.
Israel needs more soldiers.
Our son Netanel received a medical exemption from the army, so while he studied in a hesder yeshiva, he performed national service after the majority of the yeshiva’s students were drafted into the IDF. He worked in a home for teenagers at risk in Hadera.
That was last year, and he expected to return to his yeshiva this past January, when the students would have completed their compulsory military service. Of course, October 7th changed everything, and his friends did not return in January. They still haven’t returned. With no friends in the yeshiva, he instead continued to work at the home for at-risk teens.
This week, he realized that his plans to return to yeshiva next year are at risk, as well. There is no indication that his fellow students will be permitted to leave the army and return to their studies. The army needs them, and they of course are going to do their duty, even though it means forgoing their Torah learning.
Israel needs more soldiers.
Our son-in-law Shai completed his full army service close to two years ago, and subsequently studied in a yeshiva. In September he started to work toward his bachelor’s degree in Herzog College while continuing his Torah learning nearby.
On October 7th, he was called up to active service, and spent the next three months both near Gaza and in Gaza. He was released in January, and tried to return to his studies. However, he was called up again in May for forty five days of reserve duty; he finally came home at the end of last week.
There is no way for him to complete his studies at Herzog College; he essentially missed his entire first year. An excellent student, Shai plans to redo his first year beginning in the fall. Of course, he may well be called up to the army again, because the army does not have enough soldiers to allow people like Shai the luxury of studying without interruption. If he is called up, his Torah study and his college semester will presumably be put on hold. Again.
Israel needs more soldiers.
There are thousands and thousands and thousands of other stories like this. Weddings postponed. Wives and husbands and parents and children separated. Businesses without workers. Colleges and yeshivot without students.
Israel needs more soldiers.
Last Sunday, United Torah Judaism party leader Yitzchak Goldknopf publicly declared that, “You [the Israeli army] don’t want us; you don’t need us.” He claimed, in other words, that the army has no interest in the Chareidi public joining its ranks. He cited some dubious statistics to prove this (my friend Rabbi Natan Slifkin already demonstrated the fallacy of this argument, even had the statistics been accurate - which they decidedly are not). And following this claim, in an expression of political naivete and immaturity, Goldknopf asked, “Where is the equality?... Do we not have the right through elections to negotiate and receive that which we deserve?” He actually had the temerity to cry foul because the attorney general refuses to allow a blanket exemption for Chareidim of conscription age, despite the fact that they “won” the elections (meaning, the two ultra orthodox parties sit in the government; winning eighteen seats out of 120 is not exactly an overwhelming victory). He is suggesting, amazingly, that the winners get the spoils - all the spoils - and that any legal checks and balances are inherently invalid.
But his dismissive attitude toward constitutional democracy pales in comparison with the mind-boggling selfishness inherent in his assertions. It simply is not possible for a minister in the Israeli government to believe that the army neither needs nor wants Chareidim to enlist; IDF chief Herzi Halevi has explicitly said otherwise, and the Knesset is planning to vote on extending the retirement age for reservists because of the manpower shortage - a bill which, certainly, Goldknopf’s UTJ party will support.
His refusal to acknowledge the reality that is staring him in the face is reminiscent of the NBC executive who, when Saturday Night Live performers used drugs in the late 1970s, literally turned his back so that he could continue to deny that the show had a drug problem.
I accept that some Torah students should receive military deferments; we can debate the necessary qualifications for them to be eligible. But the current system is absurd and untenable. Anyone who lives in my neighborhood can easily see many local yeshiva students who received and will receive military deferments - and who are decidedly not learning Torah morning, afternoon, and night. Yet these semi-students smoking on the streets are among those whom Goldknopf demands be released from army service.
I find Goldknopf’s attitude disingenuous, dismissive, and cruel. He is saying that the Torah of his voters is worth more than the Torah of my son-in-law. He is asserting that his constituents’ blood is redder than that of the rest of the Israeli public. He personally demonstrates that any claims of all Israel working together are, effectively, a joke. And he makes the Torah into a joke by demanding blanket deferments without putting systems in place to ensure that yeshiva students are, in fact, learning all day.
Israel needs more soldiers. Desperately. And people like Yitzchak Goldknopf, who happily accepts Yaki doing an eighteen-three schedule while demanding that his constituents have no national responsibility, without requiring any checks to ensure that his charges actually learn Torah during their deferment, are doing everything they can to make the IDF weaker and less effective - all in the name of a Torah that commands exactly the opposite of what he wants.
So horribly frustrating
Well said. Let's hope that the Gedolim demonstrate greatness in being able to see the right way forward and not end up like the Meraglim