Minister Arbel: "There is no justification for those whose teachings are not their art, by definition, not to be part of the army"/from the fourth quarter movement podcast
The Shas party today (Thursday) came out against the position of Interior Minister Moshe Arbel of Shas who said that the ultra-Orthodox public should take a larger share of the burden of military service. "The issue of the conscription law and the status of yeshiva members is entrusted solely to Marnan and Rabbi of the Council of Torah Sages of Lithuania and is managed by the chairman of the movement Aryeh Deri and his representative to the negotiations Ariel Atias," it says. The position of Shas is presented exclusively in the official tools of the Shas movement.
Minister Arbel's statement that "those whose teachings are not his art - should enlist in the IDF" was published this morning and provoked sharp criticism among Shas rabbis, some of whom published a few days ago A letter in which they objected to the recruitment of ultra-Orthodox people into the IDF even though they do not study Torah, on the grounds that their recruitment was aimed at assimilating them into the "secular culture", as they put it. Shas feared the possibility that the rabbis would publish another letter against Arbel's position, and therefore published the clarification that the party's position would be presented by her alone. The pressure from the rabbis affiliated with Shas as well as from leaders affiliated with Torah Judaism causes the party to present a more extreme position than the one it has presented for years On the issue of recruitment
in the podcast of the Fourth Quarter movement, Arbel said that "the reality after October 7 is a reality that the ultra-Orthodox public needs to understand and realize that it is not morally possible to continue like this. There are 1,500 recruits per year, they must be part of the burden. In addition to them, there are quite a few institutions that define dropout youth All these institutions - there is no justification in the world that those whose teachings are by definition not their art, should not be part of the army."
The minister's words came against the background of a letter from a group of Sephardic rabbis, including members of the Shas Torah Council, who stated that even a young man who does not study - should not enlist. Their strict approach, even if it has been taken until now, has not been openly stated in such a blatant way. The rabbis They are even attacking the possibility of advancing a law with goals and quotas as some of the ultra-Orthodox factions have already agreed.
Last month, the High Court of Justice ordered that as of April 1, the validity of the government's decision exempting ultra-Orthodox whose "teaching is their art" from enlisting in the army will expire. In addition to this, the yeshiva budgets for educational institutions where about 56,000 students study will cease to receive government budgeting.