On Motza’ei Shabbos – Saturday night – a terrible incident happened in the yeshivah of Rechasim, a town just south of Haifa.
It seems a group of thuggish kids rampaged through the yeshivah, throwing rocks and other heavy objects at the yeshivah students. They set upon one of the students and brutally beat him until he was bleeding all over his face and body.
The sad part is that the yeshivah students did not call the police out of fear that they would be arrested for draft evasion. The injured student did not call for medical attention, as he, too, was scared that he would be arrested for draft evasion in the hospital.
To sum it up, the student said, “We were afraid to call the police because everyone in the yeshivah is considered a draft evader. We feel like our lives are in danger and we have no protection.”
No matter where you stand on the yeshivah draft question, this behavior is inexcusable and should send a chill up one’s spine. To think that Jewish, I assume, kids would storm a yeshivah and brutally beat up some of the students is cause for great alarm.
Is this what it has come to? Violence against yeshivah students who, for whatever reason, legitimate or not, choose to stay in yeshivah rather than be drafted represents a very bad fault in Israeli society. When Jew turns against Jew in this manner, it is a black eye for the Jewish community.
The fact that the yeshivah students feel that they cannot call the police out of fear of being arrested is a very disturbing state of affairs. Is every yeshivah student a marked man for arrest? Somehow, that just doesn’t make sense.
Yes, it is understandable that Israelis are extremely upset with yeshivah boys not doing their share in joining the army, but declaring them all criminals is going too far, in my opinion. We cannot have a situation where a whole segment of society is wanted for arrest, to the point where one must be fearful of calling the police, like common thieves.
What happened in Rechasim should be a wake-up call to everyone about how the draft situation has gotten out of hand and must be settled in a reasonable fashion. The problem is that there is no one who wants to deal with this reasonably. The pro-draft crowd has gone to an extreme in forcing the issue, while the roshei yeshivah and chareidi politicians have dug in their heels. Everybody turns out to be a big loser.
Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld is the Rabbi Emeritus of the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills, President of the Coalition for Jewish Values, former President of the Vaad Harabonim of Queens, and the Rabbinic Consultant for the Queens Jewish Link.