Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu must heed the voice of the average haredi. Haredi Knesset members Moshe Gafni, Yaakov Litzman, Eli Yishai, and Ariel Attias are failing to properly express the fears and desires of this community in regards to the universal service law, and the “Plesner law” which may be set to replace the Tal Law. According to Kadima MK Yohanan Plesner’s recommendations, haredim could defer army service until 22 and would only serve 24 or 18 months (as opposed to 3 years). There would further be 1,500 yeshiva students annually that would receive a lifetime exemption from army service. Perhaps, hearing from haredim themselves will motivate the prime minister to worry less about the coalition and instead do what is right and best for the country and for the haredim.The problem is that haredim don't have any means of sharing their voice with the prime minister. Social stigma runs deep and the haredi leadership has a stranglehold over its people. If they speak out, their sons face expulsion from school and their daughters will have a difficult time finding a match for marriage. I view myself as a haredi but I am also "out of the camp" and can therefore speak my mind freely. This freedom has allowed me to join the call of the nation for equality in national service. As a result, I received messages of thanks and encouragement from many haredim to move forward in this battle for their future. I asked them what message they would want to share with the prime minister, and I include some of their responses herein: A 40-something mother of eight from Bnei Brak, who refused to provide her name out of fear, wrote the following: Mr. Prime Minister: I come from a very haredi background. And I embrace that background in terms of the supreme importance of Torah study, the priority placed on modesty, and I am more comfortable with our approach to separation of the genders and combating the negative influences of modern society. However, our leaders have our children living in a prison. How many of my children are able to study Torah day and night? Among my children, one. I have a 12 year old son who I think can do it. But, the rest? No way. And I am so nervous that my two daughters will marry young men who were forced into this path but cannot do it. This leads to anger. This leads to resentment. This leads to poverty for no reason. And it leads to our children leaving the path of Torah, as we have now had to experience with my 19 year old son.Please, sir. Our political leaders are only concerned for themselves. We know that our children would be better off if they could leave the study hall and serve the country – either in the army or in some kind of community service. They want to be part of society and yearn to experience contributing to society. You can be the one to free them from this prison and give them the chance to live as haredim in the world – but to live. Please don't let us down with a law which is a continuation of more of the same. In Ramat Beit Shemesh “Bet,” right near the extremists who wreak havoc on the lives of people both outside and inside their community, a 31-year-old teacher in a haredi school (who also requested anonymity) wrote:Bibi, please. We are all counting on you. As men we feel inadequate for not supporting our families. Even worse, our wives go to work so we can focus on our studies and they are becoming more modern. This is causing frictions in our marriages. They tell us what we know to be true deep in our hearts – that non-haredim are not horrible people. We may disagree with them about almost everything, but they can be good and decent people who will respect us as haredim. I don't want my sons to have such a bleak future. To know that they will be poor is depressing. To know that they will feel inadequate is maddening. Bibi – the Plesner law makes sense. My sons will have a few years to focus on learning Torah exclusively. What a gift. Please don't make the age higher than 23. You can even make it a drop lower. This will prepare them for their next steps as proud, haredi Jews.. I have one son who may qualify for the elite group that will exclusively study, a very nice gesture from a secular government. I have a second son who may be scared by the army but will love and thrive from doing community service. And, I have a third son who will rush to IDF service. Bibi, please, we are quietly waiting for you to pass the law based on the Plesner recommendations. We don't see Plesner as the devil, we see him as the Messiah. Please stay strong.One more thing – once you pass this law, the extremists who intimidate everyone in our communities will lose their control. Their plan of maintaining us as isolated as possible to enable them to wreak havoc and make themselves powerful and wealthy will fall apart. And, for that, more than anything else we will be eternally grateful to you.A fifty-something social worker from Bnei Brak wrote:Wow, if the prime minister only knew that he would be saving haredi Jewry and not destroying the haredi community, he would pass the new law with the broadest and strongest reforms possible. The haredi world is self-destructing. The degree of abuse, crime, and erosion of core, haredi values is at an all time high. The latest rage is teenage pregnancy – and not as a result of marriage at an early age. The rate of boys and girls rejecting their parents’ values is way higher than the rest of the country. Something has to change but the people are powerless to change it. Did anyone ever ask themselves why [the political party] Degel HaTorah has not grown in leaps and bounds in terms of mandates as the haredi community multiplies with 8-10 children per family? Why have they maintained the same number of seats in the Knesset? The answer is obvious. Our children hate them. They milk the government for money to keep them in a welfare system. And, if they have the courage to break from the system, they are outcasts and made to feel less religious and even “bad.”One of my patients convinced his parents to let him go to yeshiva in America. He went for a year and came back telling his parents that the entire community has been lied to. A person can learn huge amounts of Torah, live a haredi lifestyle, but still go to school to earn a degree and make a living and they can even play sports! He went back to America and is living a happy and free haredi life there. Now his siblings want to go. I hope the prime minister knows that haredim are wonderful people who could contribute so much to the country if he would free them from their leaders. We are all waiting for this devastating exile to come to an end. And Netanyahu can make it happen.I conclude with one last quote. The haredi press has been very critical of me for joining reservists in the fight for equality in national service. In an interview with haredi radio, the host asked me, "What source could you have quoted at the rally [held in the plaza of Tel Aviv museum last month - Ed] to justify your position?” I told the host that I had quoted Moses. It was an excerpt from last week’s Torah portion [Matot], which I know the prime minister studies with his son on Shabbat. In the text, Moses responds to a request from two and a half of the twelve tribes to remain on the eastern side of the Jordan, and not join the rest of the nation in their fight for the land of Israel.He said, "Will your brothers go to fight and you will remain here?" To me, the Torah perspective is clear – no one can simply opt out of fighting with the rest of the nation. The host paused before retorting, "What does something Moses said have to do with Judaism today?" That pretty much says it all. I hope the prime minister I voted for listens to the voices from the haredi community and understands just how far off its leadership has veered, to the point that even Moses is made irrelevant in order to justify their stance. The haredi street is waiting and in need of this salvation.The writer is an educator, author, and community activist in Bet Shemesh. www.rabbilipman.com
