Rabbi Meir Hilwitz, the Rav of the yishuv of Bruchin and a Rosh Mesivta at Ma’ale Eliyahu Yeshiva in Tel Aviv, published an article calling to the Dati Leumi sector to protest the judicial system’s “wicked persecution of our Chareidi brothers.”
Rabbi Hilwitz began: “I cannot help but cry out in heartfelt pain. How did we allow a corrupt and rotten system to take an entire community—kadosh and tahor—and officially transform it into a population of ‘criminals and draft evaders’ who must flee from every police officer as though they were the worst offenders and degenerates in society?!”
Rabbi Hilwitz clarified that he doesn’t agree with the Chareidi approach toward the IDF and “the understanding of the redemptive processes through which we are living.”
Nevertheless, he wrote that his main pain is that “we allowed such a pure and holy public force—one that educates its children according to Torah and yiras Hashem, and whose entire life revolves around the Mesilas Yesharim and the Shulchan Aruch—to be transformed…”
“How did we allow them, with a crude, sophisticated, wicked, and terrifyingly powerful hand, to turn the members of this community into a band of draft dodgers and criminals stripped of basic rights in our ‘democratic’ state, where the judicial system claims to defend oppressed minorities? Is there any minority in Israeli society whose rights are trampled more than those of this minority? They are now deemed unworthy of daycare assistance, discounted housing, tax-benefit provisions, and there are even those who have suggested depriving them of the right to vote.”
“These hypocrites within the judicial system have now gone even further, bringing this community to a dreadful situation in which its members must walk the streets in fear and hide from every police officer as though they were wanted criminals.”
“Even the basic social protection that the police are supposed to provide to citizens has been denied to them. Roshei Yeshivos are forced to warn their students to hide from the police on their way home and not to attract attention. Is such a thing conceivable? Has anything like this ever happened in Israel?”
“I feel the same way I did before the Gaza disengagement, when they promised us, the Religious Zionist public, that they would persecute us relentlessly. When we asked whether Israeli society would really allow them to commit such an injustice and expel an entire holy, pure, and principled community from its homes, the architects of the expulsion gave us a chilling answer: ‘We have two years to turn you into the scum of Israeli society and its worst citizens. We will make you into a society deserving of every disaster that befalls it.’
“We experienced two years of delegitimization, condemnation, and media persecution. Then came the terrible expulsion.”
He warned that the same “crushing system,” led by “Kaplan representatives” in the judiciary and media is now using similar tactics against the Chareidi sector.
“And now, once again, a well-oiled, wicked system, full of power and influence over public opinion, is taking an entire community and sullying its reputation. But this time, everything is also enshrined in antisemitic laws, unlike anything found in any decent human society.
“The crushing conduct of the representatives within the judicial system has shattered all the rules of the game. In their blind and wicked persecution of our Chareidi brothers, they demonstrate that they are no longer participants in the construction of our complete and diverse national stature. These persecutors have no place in our collective national journey.”
Rabbi Hilwitz concluded with a dramatic appeal to his fellow members of the Religious Zionist community: “The persecution our Chareidi brothers are enduring is far deeper, more painful, threatening, and severe than what we suffered. This persecution should bring people into the streets to protest, cry out, and warn against it. This monstrous, terrifying, and wicked system must be confronted and uprooted from its foundations.”
“We must not be dragged into this unrestrained persecution. It has nothing to do with our ideological and Torah disagreements with them. The time has come to say enough to this hatred. We must return to the bris of those who love Torah and faith.”
Chareidi journalist Yedidya Meir read the article on Kol Chai Radio, adding: “One lone Rabbinic voice this morning from the Religious Zionist camp.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
