Torah students defend military exemption

IN their own eyes, the military draft-exempt students at Jerusalem’s Hebron Yeshiva are engaged in the most sacred task possible for a Jew: connecting with God’s will through study of holy texts.

But in the view of many secular Israelis, they are loafers and parasites.

Though averse to the military, the yeshiva students have a uniform of sorts.

They all wear black felt skullcaps and white shirts with white strings, or tzitzit, hanging out as a reminder of the divine commandments.

Despite Israel being a high-tech powerhouse, they live without e-mails, iPhones or even television sets.

Studies in the yeshiva’s vast learning hall focus on the Torah, the five books of Moses.

“The more Torah I learn, the more I know what the Holy One Blessed Be He wants from me,” explains Shmuel Kirschenbaum, 19, one of the 1,200 ultra- orthodox students at the yeshiva, who are among an estimated 62,000 religious young men with exemptions from military service.

Another student, Binyamin Gold, 21, is also convinced that Torah study is his calling in life, regardless of a landmark decision last week by the Israeli supreme court that could curb exemptions.

Touching the Talmud, a compendium of rabbinic discussions dating back more than 1,500 years, Mr Gold says: “In every portion I see the approach of God, what he demands from me, how to behave morally, how to love him.”

But secular Israelis across the political spectrum are increasingly bitter about ultra-orthodox who do not share in the burden of the country’s defence, three years of army service for men and then years of reserve duty, often until well into their forties.

“People go to the reserves and risk their lives, undermine their businesses and are away from their families while others are not working, have a lot of kids and are a burden on social services,” says Uri Dromi, former spokesman for Yitzhak Rabin, the slain Israeli prime minister.He adds: “Of course people see them as parasites.”

To counter accusation they are draft-dodgers, students assert that by learning Torah they help induce some kind of divine intervention on Israel’s behalf.

“We say there is another part of the war effort that is built on our studying and that in every military campaign there are those who fight and those who study,” said a student who identified himself only as Arye.