Shas minister acknowledges being Haredi doesn't automatically exempt one from army service
The Shas member who's working as the health minister, and also served in the army himself, made this vital point on a TV interview:
Health and Interior Minister Moshe Arbel from the Shas Party gave an interview to Channel 12 News on Monday in which he commented on the Draft Law, and claimed that being haredi should not automatically grant a person an exemption from military service.Thank goodness somebody's making sense here, and recognizes that Torah study - which the military does allow to be taught in special classes there - doesn't make you exempt from something that's practically discussed within its pages and roll sections, and why you must work to defend the Jewish nation from barbarism. All the same, that doesn't make the Haredi lifestyle an inherently good or perfect one, and it'd do a lot of good if more would get out of it, and take up a simpler form of Orthodox Judaism instead. The time's come already.
"Precisely as someone who served in the army and as someone who served in the reserves until he entered the Knesset, and all my brothers served in the army, one of them an officer in the IDF, I want to say clearly – being haredi is not a reason to be exempt from military service."
He also said, "Whoever studies Torah, I expect that in a Jewish state this will not be a criminal offense. The group of Torah students should be respected."
"At the same time, if a person takes advantage of this exemption and does not study Torah and tries to evade military service - we all together should work to recruit him for adapted military service," said Arbel.
Labels: haredi corruption, Israel, Knesset, military
