Chabad Students to Get Special Deferment of IDF Draft to Study in 770
The Knesset committee working on the new IDF draft bill have decided to add a third special conscription “track” – in addition to the existing “Hesder track” for religious Zionists, and Haredi track for the Ultra-Orthodox young men – the Chabad-Lubavitch track.
Over the next three days, the Knesset committee working on the conscription law, chaired by Bayit Yehudi MK Ayelet Shaked, will prepare its final draft that will include, among other changes, shortening the service period for all enlisted IDF soldiers, adding a month to the Hesder yeshiva track, and creating the Chabad track.
According to a Chabad rabbi speaking to Kikar hashabbat, the Chabad track will have different – and presumably easier – conditions than those offered to Haredi yeshiva students.
The bill presented for a second vote on Tuesday permits Chabad yeshiva students ages 18-20 to leave the country to one destination: 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, NY, the world center of Chabad Lubavitch. They will be allowed to stay there for two years, come back home, get married and spend one year in Kolel. Then they will enlist, as per the determination by the IDF. They, too, like Haredi students, will be permitted to ask for a delay of service until age 24.
This will end, once and for all, the ongoing problem faced by Lubavitch youths who stay in America and then face charges of desertion upon their return, with some actually serving jail time. Now they can take their time and stay in Crown Heights with the IDF approval.
According to the current draft, before the Tuesday vote, the Hesder students will be serving an additional month, as prescribed originally by the Perry Committee, totaling their service at 17 months. Non-Hesder soldiers will serve 32 months, down from 36.
Minister Naftali Bennett, chairman of the Bayit Yehudi Party, celebrated the new bill on his Facebook page, saying that, “for the first time in many decades, the government is acting to connect the Haredi public with the world of employment and service.”
“Without this move, the State of Israel would have been trapped in an enormous socio-economic crisis in a few years,” Bennett added, promising: “in a few weeks we will change the reality in Israel.”
The law is hated by many in the Haredi public as well as on the left. MK Eliezer Stern of Tzipi Livni’s Hatnuah Party, who served as head of HR in the IDF and wears a yarmulke, accused Bayit Yehudi of hypocrisy, by making a mockery of the idea of equal burden, which the new draft law was supposed to fix. According to Stern, the Hesder yeshiva track, which started out as a great thing, has become corrupt over the years, with men who are registered in Hesder yeshivas actually doing other things and getting to serve a shorter term.
Minister Yaakov Perry, whose committee actually wrote the original draft with the 17-month allotment to religious Zionist Hesder soldiers, now accused Bayit Yehudi of weakening the demands from Haredim. He promised a fight on the Knesset floor over the special terms awarded to Haredim, seeing these as a rehashing of the faults of the Tal Law, which the Supreme Court annulled for its failure to introduce changes fast enough.
Crown Heightser
As Nike says “Just Do IT”.
No more excuses, no more games. Serve the Jewish people, serve Jewish nation….fulfill your obligations to the IDF with no string attached.
If this goes through, 770 will become a bigger scandal than it has already become.
Milhouse
You’re making war on the Rebbe, and on the Torah. Beware.
WRONG!!!
Dafka draft them! Then maybe they will learn some discipline & respect for authority before they come here. Maybe the problems these crazies bring will be parked at the induction ceremony. Give them desk jobs but make them serve.
CHLEAKS
The administration of Central Yeshiva Tomchei Timimim Lubavitz of the U.S.A. (770), are licking their lips at this news, for them this means three things:
MONEY,
MONEY AND MORE
MONEY.
What happened to "US"
This should bring about tremendous unity both here and in Israel and bridge a gap between all Jews and bring peace and tranquility to all of our brothers and sisters.
K
I agree with Milhouse that anyone who argues against this, is also against the view of our Gedolim and Torah. The Gedolim are all united against the draft of Yeshiva bochurim.
They don't study in 770
They sing Yechi Adoneinu wave yellow flags and make many fair-minded Jews hate Israelis. Why do some Israelis have to complete their military service before getting to trek, while these guys get to party without having accomplished a thing? Don’t be a bunch of Freshers. Draft these young men and let the IDF turn them into responsible adults.
Milhouse
The ones who aren’t learning should go to the army. But how dare you denigrate the torah of those who are learning?
And once someone has done his bit for am yisroel by learning Torah, why should he then have to serve in the army as well? Torah does more to protect the country than any army service does, so time in yeshivah should count as army time.
Proud mom
Do these young men good to learn some discipline and compassion. I would draft the Rosh Yeshivas also. They are a big reason why so many of our American boys enlist.IDF does a better job!
Milhouse
Draft roshei yeshivah?! You just exposed yourself as an enemy of Hashem and of the Rebbe. The gemoro says explicitly that it is forbidden to draft talmidei chachomim, and Hashem punishes anyone who does so. And the Rebbe’s opinion was crystal clear; a yeshivah bochur’s place is in front of a sefer and nowhere else. Not at demonstrations, not in election campaigns, and certainly not in the army.
wondering
Who pays for the Israeli bocherim who come here for kvutza?
Dima
Can somebody show me where in the torah it says that religious jews are not required to fight to defend the jewish nation?
Dima
especially when there exists a dedicated haredi unit that allows religious jews to serve in the army in total jewish observence?