The trip of our Torah leaders to the U.S. for the sake of the Torah community in Eretz Yisroel expresses our esteem to the supporters of Torah across the sea and their tremendous merit in enabling Torah study to continue and stand on its feet. At the same time, however, it is also a shameful show, if not the worst possible, of exposing the real face of the State of Israel.
The very fact that the Jewish state — the very one which the nations of the world buttressed in its establishment solely in deference to the Divine promise to the Jewish People [for a homeland] as written in the Torah — halted its designated budget for Torah scholars. This is a severe writ of defamation and prosecution, threatening and destructive, which undermines the very foundations of the continued existence of this state.
The truth is that it is no big surprise. Throughout the years of its existence, the state's support of the yeshiva community was only a result of coalition settlements rather than from an understanding and acknowledgement that this was how it should be.
The die-hards of religious nationalists argued throughout the years that it was necessary to celebrate the establishment of the State also because it enabled the Torah world to flourish within its boundaries. The rebuttal was one and the same — and this is documented on paper — that the miraculous flourishing of the Torah public was 'in spite' of the State and not 'because' of it. Had the various governments not been in need of the chareidi votes, those budgets would have long been sliced and quartered.
Over many decades, we have been witness, year by year at the time that the annual budget was presented, of the massive propaganda in the media of 'the chareidi blackmail' even though the clauses of that budget were part of the original coalition agreement. The fact that these allocations did not constitute an integral part of the agreement resulted in the fact that they had to be presented again, year after year, and renegotiated for approval. This merely goes to show that the Jewish State was 'forced' to allocate those sums which were almost never awarded out of good will or acknowledgement.
The chareidi public deserves to receive budgets for its various institutions justly and impartially. It pays taxes like every citizen, directly as working citizens, which anyway includes the majority of this sector, or indirectly in the way of all citizens.
The very taxes on home purchase — and in our circles many apartments are being bought for new couples — add up to billions of shekalim a year. The fact that every year our Knesset representatives had to beg for alms and fight for budgets for the Torah community is open witness that the Israeli State never recognized the privilege and merit presented to it in its being the locus for being the largest Torah center in the entire world.
The High Court's decision to hold up the budgets for Torah students of draft age was received with almost unanimous cheers, even including the national religious camp, because the dictatorial high court succeeded in executing what so many dreamed of all these years: to steal the poor man's sheep, i.e. the support of Torah institutions.
Consequently, American Jewry has gained the great privilege of standing by and replenishing what the State has denied its Torah citizens. This very sector hopes to continue this trend, against all nefarious schemes. Surely, the world of Torah in Eretz Yisroel will continue to bloom because it is the true and only defensive wall which guarantees the continued existence of Jewish settlement in the Holy Land in spite of all those who seek to destroy it.
Lack of IDF Sensitivity to Basic Burial Custom
What is more Jewish than appending the words "Hashem Yinkom Domo - Hashem will Avenge his Blood" to the text on the tombstones of those who fell, were killed or murdered for the very fact of their Jewishness?
A mitzvah-observant family whose son fell in battle, sought to add to the text of the tombstone the above words, but their plea was rejected. This past Thursday the family came to the military cemetery on the shloshim since the son's death, only to find that the tombstone did not bear any engraved text whatsoever, simply because the family had requested adding those three words. This involves a family whose four sons are serving now in the army and which stands helpless against the stubborn opacity and wickedness of the army personnel.
A member of the family tells that after the family's request to add those words, "My mother received a threatening call from a gross, brutal, disparaging voice demanding that she sign an agreement to the army's text or else the grave stone will remain blank." That person called from a blocked number so that the family had no way of responding or reacting.
"No one from the Ministry of Security has been in contact with us. Such conduct is reprehensible! Our family has been receiving many calls from others who are experiencing similar conduct from that ministry. This is against the law! There is a supportive ruling from the High Court from 1992 which clearly states that the bereaved family has the right to express its feelings and requests."
This is only one small story, one of many of the army's bullheaded disregard for observant members of families which serve in it. The army is a secular body, and one can almost say, 'an anti-Jewish' one, with no desire whatsoever to empathize with the Jewish needs of those who serve in it. And to the attention of those pseudo-chareidi bodies who believe that one can arrive with the army at agreements with the army regarding chareidim, let they be the ones who join its ranks.
