Shas Slams Religious Zionist Activists Who Oppose Draft Bill: ‘Heirs Of Datan And Aviram’

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — In recent days, the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee headed by Likud MK Boaz Bismuth has been the scene of a sharp public outcry which has gained the attention of all national media outlets.

As Bismuth discusses the explosive issue of a draft deferral bill for yeshiva students (and for others who are not part of the charedi quotas required by the bill), numerous elements have protested the bill’s exemption and lenient demands from the charedi community. In particular, a young religious lawyer named Shvut Ra’anan, a leader of the “Reservists” party, was unstinting in her criticism of the bill, claiming that it states that “Your blood (charedim) is bluer than ours” and that other sectors are bearing the brunt of the charedi isolationism.

In response, the Shas party launched a harsh and unprecedented attack against the religious activists who are leading the campaign against the draft bill. In an editorial published in the party’s newspaper it was written, among other things: “At the forefront of those raising the raucous voices stand people wearing kippot, but the messages coming from their mouths are far more repulsive and sickening than those of any adversary from other sectors.”

The party further claimed: “The poisonous and horrific statements being heard these days in the general media, led by women wearing head coverings who speak in the name of the Torah against those who toil in Torah, are unprecedented in their brazenness. They have no fear whatsoever of the severe spiritual pitfalls awaiting their husbands and sons, those who keep Torah and mitzvot, if they serve in the army.”

In even sharper language they added that these religious activists “stand in arrogant insolence as the modern-day heirs of Dathan and Abiram. They are not willing to tolerate even a single Torah student.”

Shas claimed further: “This is the same intense hatred that characterized Akiva before he became Rabbi Akiva — ‘Give me a Torah scholar and I will bite him like a donkey.’”

“They now orchestrate the bonfire of incitement. They pour oil and fuel onto the flames of hatred bursting out in public,” the editorial said.

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett responded: “To all those in Shas who disgrace the sons of Religious Zionism (and to all those who support this in silence): You will not be granted forgiveness, not in this world and not in the next,until you walk past the hundreds of graves of the holy fallen soldiers from Religious Zionism, who combined Torah and arms in their lives and in their deaths. You will go past each grave one by one and ask forgiveness for degrading them and their wives (‘women who do not understand the spiritual dangers their husbands face’).”

“And by the way,” Bennett added, “regarding the citation about Rabbi Akiva: Rabbi Akiva, even as a rabbi, served as the armor-bearer of Bar Kokhba in his war against the Romans. I am certain he would be ashamed of you for saying such things.”

Former minister Yoaz Hendel commented: “A government that relies on such a party will never be able to fix anything here. A party that denies the basics.”

Former minister Matan Kahana wrote in response: “Aryeh Deri calls Religious Zionism the heirs of Dathan and Abiram. Shame has disappeared. We need a coalition of servants!”