July 14, 2024

The International Rabbinic Fellowship rarely wades into political and religious controversies in Israel, as most of our members reside in the Diaspora.

However, we do engage with perspectives articulated here in the Diaspora about events in Israel. Recently, a major Orthodox organization referred to recent government discussions and court decisions to draft Haredi Yeshiva students into the IDF during these difficult days of war in Israel, as "decreeing evil laws with malicious intent" and compared it as akin to the burning of the books of the Talmud that was carried out by our enemies during the middle ages.

In addition to its factual inaccuracy and total obliviousness to the contemporary reality and challenges faced by the Jewish people in the Jewish state, and its misreading of Jewish law and tradition, this rhetoric is simply unacceptable. It desecrates the name of God and the good name of God's holy Torah and widens the fissures in the Jewish people. Whatever one's political perspective on this contentious issues, we express our total rejection of the use of such language which is out of the pale and dishonors Jewish history and sacrifice.