The
New York Times yesterday reported on the campaign within the ultra-Orthodox (
Haredi) community in Israel to dissuade men from enlisting in the country's military. Traditionalists, feeling pressure from the Israeli government's moves to eliminate large scale
haredi draft exemptions, are moving to marginalize and abuse those who have enlisted in existing programs, and to discredit military service. The article, titled
Service Brings Scorn to Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox Enlistees reports in part:
Crude, comics-style posters have appeared in recent weeks on billboards across ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods nationwide portraying those soldiers, who volunteered under programs meant to attract Haredim, as fat, bearded, gun-toting caricatures in uniform snatching terrified Haredi children off the streets.....
Brig. Gen. Gadi Agmon, from the Israeli military’s human resources branch, told a parliamentary committee here last week that the well-orchestrated campaign was no less vicious in style than that of Der Stürmer, the Nazi-era propaganda organ notorious for its anti-Semitic caricatures.....
Haredi soldiers have been verbally abused, spit on and humiliated while walking through their neighborhoods all over Israel. Some have been attacked with stones, or their car tires have been slashed. The children of others have been rejected by local educational institutions, and there are growing fears that enlisting could harm the marriage prospects of their siblings.
