Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah Tells MKs To Vote Against Proposed Draft Law

If law is passed as is, they are to leave the coalition immediately

The Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of Agudas Yisrael in Eretz Yisrael instructed the party’s members of Knesset on Thursday that unless satisfactory revisions can be made to the Defense Ministry’s recommendations for a new conscription law before passage by the Knesset, the party should vote against the law, and if it is passed without their support, they should immediately withdraw from the coalition.

The decision after the Moetzes convened in Yerushalayim, with the participation of the Rebbes, shlita, of Ger, Vizhnitz, Sanz, Boyan, Slonim, Modzitz, Seret Vizhnitz and Sadigora. During the meeting, Deputy Health Minister Rabbi Yaakov Litzman, Deputy Education Minister Rabbi Meir Porush, MK Rabbi Yisrael Eichler, and MK Rabbi Menachem Eliezer Mozes presented the Defense Ministry’s recommendations and its ramifications in great detail and requested the guidance of the Gedolim on the matter.

After a lengthy and in-depth discussion, the members of the Moetzes expressed the view that the party cannot support a law that seeks to change the status-quo that has been in place for the past 70 years — which has allowed those who are in the category of Toraso Umanuso to be able to learn Torah without hindrance. The Gedolim instructed that the protest against the new recommendations should be heard “from one end of the world to the other.”

The new recommendations include set quotas for the number of yeshivah students joining the army, and economic sanctions against yeshivos if these targets are not set. Furthermore, the proposed new law would include a clause stating that if recruitment rate of at least 85 percent of the annual targets is not met for three consecutive years, the law exempting the yeshivah students will expire after 12 months.