“Let us recall that the penal code stipulates severe prison sentences for anyone who incites or solicits a person liable for military service not to serve, and that the things described… may amount to committing a criminal offense, especially at a time when the State of Israel is at war.”
Hotline linked to cabinet minister is advising Haredi callers to ignore draft orders
‘You don’t have to do anything, just ignore them,’ assistance center established by Meir Porush tells father of yeshiva student who was instructed to report to IDF
Worried Haredi yeshiva students who call a telephone hotline linked to Jerusalem Affairs Minister Meir Porush have repeatedly been advised to ignore draft orders and lie to the Israel Defense Forces, a Times of Israel investigation has found, prompting calls for a criminal investigation into potential violations of the 1986 Security Service Law.
The hotline was established amid a push by the IDF to draft ultra-Orthodox youths, who until recently enjoyed exemptions from the military, and a campaign by Haredi parties to ensure that a new law being crafted on the issue would largely enshrine the exemptions.
Addressing a gathering of his Shlomei Emunim movement in December, Porush announced that “in recent days, we have established an assistance center for those facing the threat of conscription at the central office for public inquiries of the Agudat Yisrael Jerusalem Center.
“Although the situation seems insoluble and it is unclear to what extent it will be possible to assist every request and rescue those who turn to us from the danger of conscription, we will do our best to assist Torah scholars as much as possible to immerse themselves back into the sea of Torah without unnecessary worries,” he said.
Shlomei Emunim is a part of the larger Agudat Yisrael faction, which in turns represents the Hasidic community’s interests within the coalition’s United Torah Judaism party (the other faction in UTJ is the non-Hasidic Degel Hatorah).
Following Porush’s announcement, The Times of Israel called the hotline to ask about its activities. A representative stated that he was unable to provide “any advice” for young men of draft age.
Instead, he claimed, the hotline was only set up to provide pro bono legal advice for “older people who got married and have all sorts of personal issues that could exempt them from the draft.”
However, this was only partially true, with multiple current and former members of the ultra-Orthodox community who called the hotline reporting that they were actively advised to ignore enlistment orders and obstruct authorities’ efforts to follow up on the matter.
A pattern of behavior
Zalman, a member of the ultra-Orthodox community, said that he was told to disregard any draft orders sent to his son. All the hotline callers who spoke with The Times of Israel agreed to do so on condition that they be identified by a pseudonym due to fear of reprisal.
“What they are suggesting at this stage is to ignore it, not deal with it,” he said, claiming that he was told: “If you received an initial call-up order, you are like thousands of others. You don’t have to do anything, just ignore them.”
The hotline similarly told Dovid, a former Hasid, to lie to the IDF about his son’s whereabouts.
“Generally, with a boy of 17 there is nothing special to do. You need to be careful, if somebody calls, say that you are not in touch with your son and you don’t know where he is. Don’t say that he saw the draft orders,” the hotline told him.
Dovid was further instructed to tell his son not to attend any demonstrations or give the police any excuse to ask for his identification number and see that he is a draft dodger.
Speaking with Chaim, a 19-year old yeshiva student, the hotline did not explicitly advise ignoring orders. Instead he was told to relax and only come back for further advice when an arrest warrant was issued against him.
“They kept saying that you haven’t received an arrest warrant yet and there is nothing to fear and nothing to worry about. And I said to them, What if there is an arrest warrant? ‘Call us and we will help you,'” Chaim recalled.
Since last summer’s High Court of Justice ruling that the government must draft ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students, the IDF has sent out thousands of draft orders and subsequently issued 1,212 arrest warrants. Last week, an ultra-Orthodox yeshiva student was arrested at Ben Gurion Airport for trying to evade an IDF draft order by leaving the country.
Some members of the community charged that the hotline and similar efforts were doing more harm than good and misleading them about the ramifications of their actions.
The approach is highly ill-advised and has the potential to cause widespread damage, complained Moshe, an ultra-Orthodox man in his late twenties who has been in touch with several of the competing hotlines being run by elements of the Haredi community.
“These organizations are just a cover for a larger failure of members of Knesset and politicians who are unable to do anything. Establishing these organizations on a large scale is quite ridiculous because they actually have no solution to offer,” he said.
“I think it’s irresponsible to tell people to [avoid the army] and hide from them the meaning of being AWOL. You need to tell people, listen, you are going to be deserters, that is, to be a criminal with a criminal background. They don’t say this and a person doesn’t know what he’s getting into.”
An ‘illegal’ operation
“There is no doubt that this is illegal,” former IDF manpower chief and Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern told The Times of Israel, calling the advice given by the hotline “unethical” and insisting that he was unsurprised that Minister Porush “encourages people to cheat.”
Stern is a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, which is currently debating a controversial enlistment law demanded by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox coalition partners.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior official in Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party agreed, stating that Agudat Yisrael’s hotline was “definitely violating the existing law.”
“I think that we all understand the coalition reality, but at the least the prime minister has to make it quite clear that he won’t tolerate this behavior from any member of the coalition,” the official said.
In an email to The Times of Israel, Tomer Naor, an attorney for the Movement of Quality Government watchdog group, said his organization was planning to contact the police and attorney general to demand a criminal investigation into the matter.
Responding to the quotes shared by hotline callers, Naor wrote: “A very disturbing picture emerges, according to which elements that are directly connected to a party in power are allegedly operating an entire system that assists in violating the laws of the State of Israel.”
“Let us recall that the penal code stipulates severe prison sentences for anyone who incites or solicits a person liable for military service not to serve, and that the things described… may amount to committing a criminal offense, especially at a time when the State of Israel is at war.”
No relationship to the Agudat Yisrael faction
When The Times of Israel visited the premises of Agudat Yisrael’s hotline on Wednesday morning, an employee referred all questions to a spokesman for the initiative, who turned out to be Minister Porush’s representative Shmuel Kramerski.
Asked for comment, Kramerski replied that those manning the hotline had been told that everybody should “act in accordance with the instructions of their rabbis.”
“The purpose of answering the phone is to advise and guide the person who decides to act in accordance with the instructions of his rabbis, and not a determination or recommendation to a person on how to act,” Kramerski said. Any representative behaving otherwise would be disciplined, he added.
A spokesman for Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, the Agudat Yisrael chairman, denied any connection between his boss and the hotline, telling The Times of Israel that “this is related to Porush, the institutions of Agudat Yisrael Jerusalem belong to [him].”
The Israel Police did not answer requests for clarification regarding the legality of the hotline’s activities, while the IDF spokesman’s office declined to comment.
The Prime Minister’s Office likewise declined to discuss the issue, instead directing The Times of Israel to speak with Netanyahu’s Likud party, which did not respond.
2 comments:
https://nypost.com/2025/02/15/us-news/trans-migrant-arrested-for-raping-boy-in-nyc-park-bathroom/
Yeah yeah, “sure”. UOJ got the media hooked on the idea that this kind of stuff supposedly runs in families
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