What is traditionally a brief and uplifting respite for thousands of yeshiva bochurim and kollel yungeleit after Shavuos turned into a weekend marked by fear, uncertainty, and widespread anxiety. Reports of arrests, roadside detentions, and efforts to avoid encounters with authorities dominated conversations across the Torah world, leaving many families deeply unsettled.
Each year, the Shabbos following Shavuos serves as a short break after weeks of intense learning. Thousands of bochurim and avreichim typically use the opportunity to return home, spend time with family, and recharge before resuming the summer zman.
This year, however, the atmosphere was markedly different. Instead of a sense of relief and renewal, many communities reported feelings of apprehension and unease amid a wave of arrests involving yeshiva students and avreichim who were subsequently transferred to military authorities.
Safe Houses and Sleepless Nights
Sources related that fears of unexpected police actions led to an extraordinary outpouring of communal support. Families in numerous neighborhoods, including areas not generally identified with the more insular chareidi communities, reportedly opened their homes to host bochurim for Shabbos.
Residents described a situation in which some families feared that authorities could arrive at their homes during the night. As a result, some bochurim reportedly spent Shabbos sleeping at alternate locations rather than at their registered addresses.
“Parents are simply afraid that military police will knock on their door in the middle of the night and take their sons into custody,” one resident said. “Some bochurim spent the nights in nearby apartments, away from their official home addresses. Every knock on the door startled entire families.”
The concern also extended into the yeshiva world itself. At one prominent Litvishe yeshiva in Yerushalayim, unusual activity was reported shortly before Shabbos as parents arrived in large numbers to pick up their sons directly from the campus. According to reports, students were advised to avoid public transportation and hitchhiking, which many feared had become potential points of detention.
Three Bochurim Arrested While Traveling Home
Those concerns intensified following several arrests that took place shortly before Shabbos and quickly became the focus of discussion throughout the chareidi community.
One incident involved three talmidim from Yeshivas Maalos HaTorah who were attempting to obtain rides home. According to reports, traffic police stopped the students for a routine identification check and discovered that they were listed as draft evaders.
The three were reportedly taken into custody and transferred to military authorities. They spent Shabbos in detention alongside approximately 40 other yeshiva students and avreichim who are currently being held under similar circumstances. Leaders within the Peleg Yerushalmi are reportedly preparing demonstrations and protest activities in response.
Kiryat Gat Arrest Sparks Outrage
A separate incident in Kiryat Gat generated particularly strong reactions and threatened to escalate tensions between the chareidi community and law enforcement authorities.
According to reports, a well-known Belzer chossid and avreich was arrested and transferred to military authorities after being identified as a draft evader.
Witnesses said that the arrest occurred while a crowd had gathered around a local incident. The avreich allegedly approached police officers in an effort to help calm the situation. Instead, officers checked his identification and, after determining his status, placed him under arrest.
The incident prompted unusually sharp criticism within Belz, where many viewed the arrest as crossing long-standing understandings between the chareidi community and law enforcement authorities.
The response was swift. Senior figures in the chassidus reportedly instructed dozens of police volunteers affiliated with Belz, as well as avreichim involved in various enlistment-related processes, to attend an emergency gathering scheduled for Motzaei Shabbos.
Officials involved in volunteer emergency and community organizations expressed concern that the episode could damage trust and hinder cooperation between the chareidi public and police authorities.
At the same time, Deputy Minister and MK Yisroel Eichler, along with leading Belz activists, became actively involved in efforts to secure the avreich’s release. According to reports, significant political pressure was brought to bear on senior figures within the security and law enforcement establishment.
After several tense hours, those efforts proved successful, and the avreich was released shortly before the onset of Shabbos.
Despite that release, tensions remained high throughout the Torah world after Shabbos. Many bochurim and avreichim expressed concern that routine activities once taken for granted now carry a degree of uncertainty and risk.
“The status quo has changed; the game has become dangerous,” one Yerushalayim rosh yeshiva said. “This Shabbos demonstrated that we have entered a new phase, and nobody knows what tomorrow will bring.”
{Matzav.com}
Es veht kumin ah tzeit az an ehrliche yid veht nisht kenin leben in Eretz Yisroel
May the erev rav rishaim be completely destroyed tikaf umiyad mamesh!
Yes, total agreement. Please see the series of the following remarks I just posted titled “We Must Learn From Them.”
Wow, they have tons of manpower to arrest these bachurim, but not enough manpower to serve the army?
Just put these policemen in army uniform, send them off to battle, and there you go!
Problem solved.
Very interesting how the Bedouin mafias are running rampant all throughout the South, including murders, yet arresting yeshivah bachurim is the main priority for the police and government.
I guess there’s no such thing as “universal” values.
(At very many of Matazv’s articles on Chareidi Draft, I posted the following remarks — including just a few days ago! But then, when I saw the title of this article expressing the immense intensity of the mental pain of this severely serious, escalating crises, I knew that I had to post them again here. So, BE’H, I will do that, as they are extremely important to keep in mind.)
For very many years through the 1960’s and early 1970’s, the US military fought a very fierce war in the south-eastern region of Asia, mainly in the small country of Vietnam. The declared purpose of the war was extremely noble: to stop the spread of evil Communism in that area. However, there were many indications that the action had very little to do with the noble cause of stopping Communism, and, on the contrary, had many aspects that were exceedingly NOT noble.
When the American people saw this, vast numbers fiercely opposed their government’s action, declaring it an “immoral war.” Countless young men deliberately burnt their draft cards and went to Canada, where they would be away from US police who wanted to arrest them for breaking US conscription laws.
Massive demonstrations were held in many major US cities at which protestors vehemently shouted absolute defiance of the draft and insults of the then US president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was often called by his “LBJ” initials:
“(GEIHINOM) NO!!” “WE WON’T GO!!” and
“HEY!!” “HEY!!” “L!!” “B!!” “J!!”
“HOW MANY BOYS DID YOU KILL TODAY!!”
The Vietnam episode was a very long one; its earliest beginnings were over three centuries before in 1658. The numerous stages of its development and events and the many aspects of just the US’s campaign were all exceedingly complicated. So, to fully relate it and properly analyze what was & what was not noble about it, is a highly advanced endeavor that is far beyond the scope of our comments here.
What is relevant for us is that the US Government proclaimed a noble sounding “call to arms” with Vietnam to stop Communism. The problem though, was that “stopping Communism” was really not what was being done, and much of what was being done was not noble. When this was realized, people strongly rejected their government’s call.
In the State of Israel today — and pretty much since its founding close to eighty years ago — the state’s government has proclaimed a “call to arms” to join its IDF for the extremely noble purpose of defending the Jewish homeland and ensuring that it will be a country where Jews are safe & secure & protected. However, just like with Vietnam, where there were indications that the campaign was not really about its stated noble goal, so with Israel & its IDF, there are indications that the campaign is also not really about its stated noble goal.
Probably the biggest of these indications was the episode of Simchas Torah – October 7, 2023. Throughout the preceding period, the administration of the government & its IDF ignored & dismissed & rejected numerous warnings from numerous sources of the gigantic attack the Hamas was planning. When, on October 7 itself, the Hamas operatives massively breached the border and poured into Israel, the government & its IDF took no action to try to thwart the invasion or to try to stop the Hamas’s actions. Instead, they stood aside, while the Hamas agents proceeded unhindered into numerous Kibbutzim & villages & communities, and, with the most sadistic cruelty, slashed & burned & killed well over a thousand Jews and brazenly abducted several hundreds more.
The government & its IDF thus glaringly showed that, very tragically, they do not truly care about protecting Jews & keeping them safe in any kind of a Jewish “homeland.” So, now that, more than ever, they are proclaiming this “call to arms” for the noble goal of protecting Jewish safety, that stated goal cannot really be what IS truly their goal, for “protecting Jewish safety” is not what they have been doing.
Government & IDF officials have openly admitted & brazenly bragged that they DELIBERATELY set up the extensive intrapersonal settings & facilities of their military in ways that will lead & encourage & cause recruits — who often come with wonderful high religious/moral beliefs & values that were instilled in them by their families & communities — to fully ignore & shed & discard & negate & reject those beautiful sacred beliefs & values and do terrible deeds that are the exact opposite of those beliefs & values.
So, here are open admissions from IDF directors themselves, of what is a key goal of their campaign to induct masses of Israel youth into their IDF. It is to take the young recruits — who often come with wonderful high religious/moral beliefs & values that were instilled in them by their families & communities — and remake them & reconstruct them into totally different people. Yes, a key goal of IDF service is to retrain & re-educate & reform & reformulate Israel youth into people who do not have high religious/moral beliefs & values, who do not believe in Hashem & His Torah, and who would readily do things that are the exact opposite of Torah.
Again, THIS is what is being done, and it is, obviously, not only the epitome of what is exceedingly of exceedingly of exceedingly NOT noble, it is the epitome of outright evil!!
Therefore, we of the Chareidi/B’nei Torah world today must learn from those many millions of American people of nearly sixty years ago, who were immensely appalled at the falsities of the Vietnam campaign. They saw that it was not truly about it stated noble goal of doing good things for the world (with stopping Communism) but was, on the contrary, doing bad things for the world. They thus proudly declared that they absolutely refused to join it and were not cowered by the police coming after them. Instead, they actively conducted numerous, massive, vehement, public protests against it.
Likewise, we too must be immensely appalled at the falsities of the Join-the-IDF campaign. We must realize that it is not about its stated noble goal of doing good things for the world with protecting Am Yisroel; on the contrary, it is about the very not noble goal of doing very bad things for the world with REMOVING Hashem & His Torah from Am Yisroel and remaking Am Yisroel into what is weakened & twisted & depraved & debauched & wreaked & destroyed, Rachmana Litzlan. Therefore, we must proudly declare that we absolutely refuse to join it in any way or form at all and must not be cowered by the police coming after us. Instead, we must actively conduct numerous, massive, vehement, public protests against it.
Methinks the parents of the chayalim serving in Gaza and Lebanon suffered more anxiety than the draft Dodgers parents
As the mother of a soldier who went to fight against terrorists on Oct 7th, 2023, and who cares about all Jews, not just her own son, I can tell you that I suffered knowing how badly the top-brass runs the military and is willing to endanger its soldiers for no reason, other than negligence, apathy, and hubris.
Many, many deaths and loss of limb have occurred that could have been easily prevented had the top-brass cared enough to do so.
Parents of “draft dodgers” are suffering much more. While secular parents are worried about the life of their children, chareidi parents are ALSO worried about the spiritual life of their children and generations.
I see you studied the anti Torah talking points and have it down pat.
before you draft bnei torah draft the galei tzhal and the radio tzahal and the band tzahal and the honor guard tzahal and all the unnecesary jobs. then you can think about drafting benei torah. remember there are just as many draft dogders in tel aviv as in bnei brak
These are excellent points and hardly anyone ever mentions them. Yashar koach!