Former Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef Criticizes Media Coverage of Haredi Draft Protests
Translated & summarized from Ynet by baba
Former Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef criticized violent Haredi protests against draft dodger arrests as a "desecration of God's name." He also accused the general media of inciting hatred against yeshiva students, calling them "deserters" and "draft dodgers." Yosef invoked the Chazon Ish's view of secular Jews as "babies captured by gentiles" to explain the media's influence. He also criticized secular education for its lack of religious observance.
The story in 5 lines · by baba
- Former Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef condemned violent Haredi protests against draft dodger arrests.
- Yosef accused the general media of inciting hatred against yeshiva students.
- He called the media's portrayal of yeshiva students as draft dodgers a form of incitement.
- Yosef invoked the Chazon Ish's view of secular Jews as "babies captured by gentiles."
- He criticized secular education for its lack of religious observance.
Former Chief Rabbi and member of the Council of Torah Sages of Shas, Yitzhak Yosef, condemned the recent violent protests and road blockades by extremist Haredim against the arrest of draft dodgers. Speaking at his weekly lesson on Saturday night, Yosef called the protests a "desecration of God's name." However, he simultaneously launched a sharp critique of the general media's coverage of the issue, accusing it of inciting hatred against yeshiva students.
Yosef stated that the media's portrayal of yeshiva students as draft dodgers is a form of incitement, asserting, "They are the draft dodgers! The yeshiva students are the 'deserters'! Yeshiva students save the generation. Yeshiva students save all of the Land of Israel." He invoked the view of the Chazon Ish, Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz, who considered secular Jews in his time as "babies captured by gentiles." Yosef argued that secular individuals are exposed to media incitement that fosters animosity towards yeshiva students, leading to "great incitement, terrible and awful, against yeshiva students. Hatred enters them (the secular).".
Furthermore, Yosef criticized secular education, describing children educated in secular schools as unfortunate. He recounted his own experience in a secular school where a teacher ate a sandwich without reciting the appropriate blessing, leading the child to emulate such behavior. He concluded that the Chazon Ish's teaching about the inability to rebuke in this generation, "You shall surely rebuke your neighbor," applies here, implying a lack of effective guidance against such influences.
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