Goldknopf Threatens Escalation Over Haredi Draft Arrests

United Torah Judaism chairman and former housing minister MK Yitzhak Goldknopf issued unusually harsh threats on Wednesday in an interview on Kol Barama’s “One at Noon” with Natan Meshi and Avi Gedalovitz. Speaking against the backdrop of the military draft dispute and arrests of yeshiva students, he said the Haredi public will not accept the current situation: “The day will come when we turn the state upside down, but that is at a later stage. The whole country will be like a bonfire. Do you think they will make us slaves and maids? The time will come when כולם will go out to protest across the country. We will take the prisons and turn them into yeshivas.”

Goldknopf also described pain over his ties with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying, “I cannot go meet with Netanyahu, I am in pain. I was a minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and I used the access to the fullest. Once I burst into a cabinet meeting and said, ‘We will vote against the budget!’” On draft legislation, he argued that anyone whose Torah study is his profession should receive an exemption no less than athletes who play in the World Cup or volleyball.

Asked about his political future, he said, “I will be in the next Knesset,” while cautioning that no decisions about leadership roles had yet been made. His comments came as a major Haredi vehicle protest got underway. Goldknopf said the demonstration was being held “by instruction of our rabbis, the great Torah sages of all communities and groups, to fulfill the commandment of protest against the persecution of Torah study and the arrest of Torah learners.”

He added that Torah scholars must be allowed to study in Israel, just as they can study in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and America without being stopped. The current protest is unusual for its broad Haredi unity, with Agudat Yisrael, the Jerusalem faction and the Edah HaHaredit already joining, and Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch of Degel HaTorah giving his blessing. The Gerrer Rebbe, who was at Tel Aviv’s Meir Medical Center for follow-up eye treatment, also ordered his driver to join the protest with his car as a public show of support.