In response to the latest wave of arrests tied to the enlistment crackdown on yeshiva students, the Haredi daily HaModia devoted its front page on Wednesday morning to an unusually harsh protest against the arrests, ahead of a planned demonstration outside Prison 10 later that day. The paper said the students and married scholars are being held while suffering “psychological abuse,” and compared the situation to dark periods in the past.
The letter was written at the personal request of the Gerrer Rebbe and signed by rabbis from Gur, along with major rabbinic figures across the spectrum, including Rabbi Moshe Tzvi Bergman, the senior member of the Council of Torah Sages of Degel HaTorah, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, chairman of the Council of Torah Sages of Shas, the Modzitz Rebbe, and other leading rabbis, halachic decisors, and yeshiva heads.
In the text, the signatories accuse state authorities of escalating their campaign against Torah study and Jewish observance, claiming they are trying to uproot yeshivot and targeting Torah learners through pressure on their livelihoods, their children, and their daily lives. They say the authorities have launched a “hunt” against students, removed them from their studies, and sent them to detention for wanting to study Torah and remain in holiness.
The letter warns that anyone connected to the arrests and persecution of Torah students should fear divine punishment. Quoting Maimonides and the Talmud, it says such people could “inherit Gehinnom and lose their share in the World to Come.” The writers end by expressing confidence that the promise in Isaiah will be fulfilled and that no weapon formed against the Jewish people will succeed.
