DURING the violent birth of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, its first prime minister, allowed 400 ultra-Orthodox Jews (also called Haredim) to avoid compulsory military service to pursue a life of Talmudic study. He may have thought they were too few to matter, or that their endangered traditions should be nurtured after the Holocaust. Seven decades on, however, the number of such yeshiva students has exploded to 60,000. They are still allowed to dodge the draft, and many do not work, either. Other Israelis resent this.
The clash between those who serve God and those who serve their fellow citizens was on display on the streets of Jerusalem on September 17th. Thousands of ultra-Orthodox protesters had gathered to denounce a decision by Israel’s high court—the third in two decades—that the exemption of yeshiva students from military duty was unconstitutional because it enshrined...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2yJqBYI
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