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Israel's Haredim are legally except from military service. Should they have to serve just as any other Israeli would?
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...474183,00.html
Maj. Gen. Stern: Haredim should serve
IDF Human Resources Directorate head Elazar Stern addresses wide-spread phenomenon of draft-dodging among ultra-Orthodox, religious Zionist youth
Hanan Greenberg
Published: 11.21.07, 18:15 / Israel News
"Even if a person has been granted a legal exemption from serving, it does not mean that he is not dodging the draft, only that the law does not compel him to serve in the IDF," head of the IDF Human Resources Directorate Major General Eleazar Stern, said Wednesday at a conference at Bar-Ilan University.
According to Stern, anyone who intentionally lowers his physical or mental profile or falsely claims to study in a yeshiva belongs in the IDF.
At the conference, the senior officer stated that there are many who purport to be fulltime yeshiva students but who do not actually studyTorah. At the moment, among the population eligible for the draft, about 11% receive exemptions by declaring fulltime torah-study as their profession.
"We have to remember that 25% of first-graders today learn within the ultra-Orthodox education system, and if no one intervenes, we (in the army) will be in a similar a situation in a few years," Stern said.
According to Stern, the existence of the Haredi Nahal regiment refutes the claim that ultra-Orthodox life and the army cannot be combined. "They have conditions there that are even better than in Bnei Brak," the Major General said, referring to a heavily Haredi town in central Israel.
"They see no women, not even at a kilometer's distance. We created such an environment in the army and now society must play its role and encourage (Haredi youths) to serve in the army. I don’t want the Haredi Nahal to be just a regiment, but an entire brigade."
IDF Human Resources Directorate head Elazar Stern addresses wide-spread phenomenon of draft-dodging among ultra-Orthodox, religious Zionist youth
Hanan Greenberg
Published: 11.21.07, 18:15 / Israel News
"Even if a person has been granted a legal exemption from serving, it does not mean that he is not dodging the draft, only that the law does not compel him to serve in the IDF," head of the IDF Human Resources Directorate Major General Eleazar Stern, said Wednesday at a conference at Bar-Ilan University.
According to Stern, anyone who intentionally lowers his physical or mental profile or falsely claims to study in a yeshiva belongs in the IDF.
At the conference, the senior officer stated that there are many who purport to be fulltime yeshiva students but who do not actually studyTorah. At the moment, among the population eligible for the draft, about 11% receive exemptions by declaring fulltime torah-study as their profession.
"We have to remember that 25% of first-graders today learn within the ultra-Orthodox education system, and if no one intervenes, we (in the army) will be in a similar a situation in a few years," Stern said.
According to Stern, the existence of the Haredi Nahal regiment refutes the claim that ultra-Orthodox life and the army cannot be combined. "They have conditions there that are even better than in Bnei Brak," the Major General said, referring to a heavily Haredi town in central Israel.
"They see no women, not even at a kilometer's distance. We created such an environment in the army and now society must play its role and encourage (Haredi youths) to serve in the army. I don’t want the Haredi Nahal to be just a regiment, but an entire brigade."
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