Posted on 10/24/2025 10:32:15 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews packed the streets and sidewalks for blocks around the Israeli Consulate in New York City on Sunday to protest issues including a potential end of an exemption for religious students from compulsory service in Israel’s military.
The protest at the consulate, a block from the United Nations campus in Manhattan, illustrated the complex relationship between Israel and segments of the large population of very religious Jews in New York and its suburbs.
The two influential, and often rival, grand rebbes of the Satmar community both called on adherents to participate in the demonstration.
It comes after Israel’s Supreme Court last year ordered the government to begin drafting ultra-Orthodox Jewish men into the military. There had been a longstanding enlistment exemption — dating to the founding of Israel in 1948.
The ultra-Orthodox worry that mandatory enlistment will impact adherents’ ties to their faith. But many Jewish Israelis have argued that an exemption is unfair. Rifts over the issue have deepened since the start of the war in Gaza.
Rabbi Moishe Indig, a Satmar community leader, said he’s not sure organizers expected so many people to show up but that he felt urgency building around the issue.
He said he was appreciative of the governments in New York and the US “for giving us the freedom and liberty to be able to live free and have our children go to school and study and learn the Torah.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Like the Amish, but creepy.
Hope the exemption ends. Time to put down the Talmud and pick up a Tavor.
Maybe Zelenskyy’s men could grab them.
Expect to see a lot of former dual-citizens.
“Expect to see a lot of former dual-citizens.”
That’s the weird angle of this story. If this protest were happening in Tel Aviv, it’d make total sense. But these gentlemen live in New York, presumably as U.S. citizens or at least legal residents. If they don’t like the draft policies of Israel, there’s a very easy solution for them... i.e., stop being Israeli. Why is this so hard?
Lazy, they study the Talmud all day and expect the rest of Israel to fight.
Simple..are they American, if so, why are they demonstrating at a building that represents something they don’t believe exists, the present geopolitical place call Israel
If they consider themselves as Israelis, it is your country. Stop your kvetching, go and fix it.
Chabad Orthodox Jews in Israel willingly serve in the IDF. What is the Satmar’s excuse? If it is “Israel is not a God-sanctioned state because there’s no Temple” - then why don’t y’all LEAVE? I guess they don’t want to give up all the welfare.
As I understand it, there are sects of Jews who believe the government of Israel is illegitimate because there were prophecies in the Torah that were supposed to precede the formation of the Jewish homeland, and some of those prophecies have yet to come to pass, so the current formation cannot be G_d’s will.
Those sects say they cannot avoid cooperating to some extent with the current Israeli government because it does indeed exist but they do so begrudgingly and to the least extent possible. And they see their obedience to G_d’s will as requiring them to refuse to end their full-time study of Torah to serve in the armed forces for the benefit of a government that G_d did not ordain.
Israel should Draft every single one of 'em, give 'em six weeks training and then send 'em directly to the front, where they can repay what they owe to the Israelis that served in their place.
Satmar has specific theological grounds for opposing the secular State of Israel. There are many explanations of The Three Oaths online. Here’s one in depth:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/belief/articles/satmar-anti-zionist
Satmar has specific theological grounds for opposing the secular State of Israel. There are many explanations of The Three Oaths online. Here’s one in depth:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/belief/articles/satmar-anti-zionist
Or in other words, they are free-loaders on the country of Israel.
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