Talkline With Zev Brenner on Haredim in the Army with Rabbis Avi Shafran & Scott Kahn

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[RabbiYonah]

Thanks Zev! I would
Like to hear more from Rabbi Kahn

[amyrpk]

If the khareidi insist their Torah learning is equal to army service, then the khareidi yeshivot should also be investigated for their failures in protecting us on October 7th when the investigatory commission investigates the military failures.
Just saying.

[Litefrire]

Why don't the gedolim share their reasoning with their followers. It's hard to have a debate when it goes back to "well we are following gedolim"

[benwaxman]

The Supreme Court decision did not mandate a universal draft. The actual decision was about funding, not the draft.

[aloeste]

the moral position for the haredi community to take , would be to withdraw financially from the State--- no funding, no welfare . [ the REALLY moral position would be to opt for a non-full citizenship option---- no funding and no voting.... ] . then, the israeli society could decide if that would merit a draft free status, without risk of imprisonment....

[zip]

Rabbi Shafran, please name the names of your Gdolim so we can converse with them and understand what information they are being given ! Typical Agudah type arguments

[zevspitz]

6:52 4000 Haredim enlisted since Oct. 7th. Some 80% were turned away immediately. Only about 6% of the total actually made it to fighting units.
The real problem with serving is that 20-50% of religious soldiers who enter the army come out secular. The dati-leumi are willing to sacrifice Judaism in the name of the State; the Haredim are unwilling to do so.
There have been multiple efforts to create programs for the Haredim; they've failed again and again, because progressive forces insist on using the army as a vehicle for social change, instead of solely as an army.
When the army gets its priorities in order and resists those forces, the Haredim will serve.
7:26 Like Israel's economy, the army has many systemic problems that too many people have a vested interest in ignoring; those people prefer casting the Haredim as a convenient scapegoat.
They should be the target of your (very justified) indignation.
7:40 Nobody is saying that. But the Religious Zionists are willing to make many, many compromises because we're in a period of aschalta d'geula; the Haredim don't share this view, and thus cannnot find excuses for compromising on Judaism.
11:24 IMO anyone willing to participate in such dishonest schemes would be better off drafted, regardless of other considerations.
11:32 Nobody is trying to get around the draft by signing up for yeshiva. Why are you adopting a viewpoint taken directly from secular propaganda, which assumes the only reason Haredim don't serve is to save their own skins and mooch off everybody else?
12:51 It's not just "moral fiber". We're talking about significant numbers of soldiers who no longer keep Shabbos.
13:21 Nachal Charedi is staffed mostly by dati-leumi unwilling to accept the compromises of Judaism required by joining the other branches of the army.
16:18 The army was perfectly accommodating and even sensitive when a new-age-style family of one father and two "mothers" asked to have all their names recorded on the tombstone. Haredim, and Judaism in general, don't seem to be worth the effort.
17:02 As I said.
17:47 There's a reason why Haredi politicians are so adamant. There have been multiple such efforts that have failed because the army violated the minimum conditions agreed upon with the Haredi representatives. Fool me twice...
19:39 It is not the responsibility of someone sitting and learning to be engaged in full-time kiruv.
Certain politicians would also make a lot of cheap political hay of the army being used for kiruv.
33:58 That may have been true 35 years ago. Is it still true today, after the Supreme Court has inserted itself into the functioning of the army time after time, and after the multiple social revolutions that have taken place both in Israel and in the world?
38:20 Am I allowed to send my son into an educational environment which is actively trying to secularize him?
44:38 No, the right place is to turn to the gedolim and ask them.
1:00:27 It already has. Some 30 years ago, Alice Miller successfully sued the IDF in the Supreme Court to be allowed into the air force. The army has a special Gender Affairs Advisor to the Chief of Staff position, which has frequently interfered precisely in this manner.
1:04:31 The Rambam (Deos 6:1) also says that if a person (not even a talmid chacham) is in a society with bad customs, and they force him to mix with society, and he cannot leave, he should go off to live in a cave.
1:09:08 No, the Haredi community is arguing that the Jewish state should respect Judaism and not try to force Jews to become secular.
1:14:34 The problem is that much of Israel's political and military leadership aren't aiming to win; the US is only pushing on the doors it knows it can open.
1:19:44 Once the army demonstrates that it can truly live up to its commitments to creating Haredi units, Haredim will serve and the culture will change. But that hasn't happened yet.

[Aygross]

Unfortunately shaffron seems to be a classically trained debater and would wipe the floor in whichever side he debated.