I think everyone, regardless of stance, can agree that abolishing the draft is not on the table in the foreseeable future. For discussions to be relevant and grounded in reality, that point has to kept in mind as the base case. Proposed solutions need to be based around this concept. How does that affect your thoughts about what's in store for the future viability of the country? I think there is plenty of room for creative solutions. Someone posted above a long list of organizations that Haredi people tend to participate in (Yad L'Sarah, Hatzola, etc.). Is there a reason active, voluntary participation for a certain duration of time couldn't be recognized by society as equivalent to completing "mandatory" service? I don't see why not! When there is enough goodwill, it is possible to reach a solution.
I will respond with two seperate lines/ways of response
1)
I think everyone, regardless of stance, can agree that to the vast majority of chareidi society, participation in the draft, any other mandatory national service or widespread participation in "voluntary" national service is not on the table in the foreseeable future. For discussions to be relevant and grounded in reality, that point has to kept in mind as the base case. Proposed solutions need to be based around this concept.
We will go round and round in circles, but until the pro universal draft (left
or right) understand that for many many reasons, the chareidim:
A) don't value "national service" the way you do.
B) for justified reasons (that you may not know of, understand, or choose to consider), the chareidi society has deeprooted distrust of the government and their values and agendas.
C) For ideological reasons, There are large segments of Chareidi Society that
will not do anything the govt mandates.
D) ....
then there is no way to have a open negotiation
2) As a thought experiment, lets sees how this gos.
Any service for women is even more of a nonstarter than man. So thats 50% of the Chareid pop out. (the chazon ish held itz avezrayhu for a girl to be under the authority of anyone other than her father or husband. Non starter, the state will burn worse than you saw the leftists do last week if you try to force/suggest it. If you can't accept/understand this... )
ok so just boys then
So who decides what percentage participation is sufficent to be considered "equal"? What percentage of the unequal (until now) "army servers" complaints do we have to satisfy? There are definitly politicians who would not be happy with less than 100% charedi service.
Which bachurim exactly? In which orgs? doing what? for how long? how often? how many hours a day?
If you think that the chareidi society would go for anything other than the gedolim deciding these questions, you're fooling yourself, and I'm not going to fool myself that the complainers would go for the gedolim being in charge.
So you open "voluntary" national service tracks, and some small percentage of chareidim join. What now? You happy that we can theoreticaly join recognized volunteer orgs?
Why go through the effort of recognizing some org as being equivilent to serving in the army, when you will complain that the participation rate is too low?
("YOU" doesn't mean you personaly)
(a third answer)
I think that
you should have the goodwill to consider voluntary Yeshiva study as equal to mandatory military service.
Why not? I believe that the spiritual benifits (ZECHUSIM) that the mass study of the torah brings to the nation is far more important to the national security than the military service. - אם ד' לא שמר עיר....
Even if you don't believe it, it's
at least as important as the job the most recent prime minister held
Anyway this whole equality thing is stupid. The guy who's army jobs is to be a musician has "shivyon banetel" with the combat troops??
And to the previous poster about Torah observant Jews being ridiculed or belittled in the army: I truly did not experience that on a first-hand basis. In fact, I was in a male-only religious squad in officers' school, and we were highly respected. I would objectively say we were the top performers across the board compared to the other mixed-gender squads (and as much as I hate to admit it, I guess that kind of proves some of your points in a casual way).
Let me guess. You didn't learn in Nachlas, or Bais Matis or anyone of the other chareidi Yeshiva Gedolos? What about Grodna?
You come from wherever you come from, which is fine, (and I'm not going to start guessing if you're from Jlm, RBS or KCBD or Raanana...) and I respect you for your service, but I wouldn't think that your experience could be a data point for the prospective experiences of the average chareidi yeshiva bachur.
As an aside, what was your level of contact with the "mixed gender squads"? Weekly contact? Daily? I'll assume that Male only means that the barracks were seperate, but what about the mess? the classrooms? The in feild training? Did you ever have problems with Kol Isha? Seeing women not properly dressed?
Without being a Rabanut apologist, What was with kashrus? davening? how many hours did you have to learn each day?
Was shmiras shabbos a priorty of the commanding officers or did they rely on kulas alot too much?
Do you think that the average chareidi person would regard the overall situation as being a place that he
should be?
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