budgets and drafts

Some of the gedolim of the Haredi community have gone on a fundraising trip to the USA, looking to raise a significant sum of money, to the tune of $100million, that would be used to create a fund to support the yeshivas in Israel, making up for the shortfall from the government funding that has been, and will be further, cut due to the draft law issues.

There has been a little criticism of this, which I disagree with. I think the criticism, little as it was, was based on the timing - during a war with hostages and all that, the money should be directed to the war effort, supporting the wounded, etc. I disagree with this sentiment. There are plenty of people out there donating to all sorts of causes. If all donations are to be stopped and redirected to the war effort, where is the criticism of donations to cancer research at this time or to supporting the needy or to any other cause? Only donations to yeshivas draw criticism?

Thankfully there are lots of different people with different priorities and that way all different sorts of causes can get supported.

That being said, anybody who thinks this fund creating increased financial independence of the Haredi community, independence from the government and its demands, are, I think, sorely mistaken.

One can argue whether the government should or should not support institutions that encourage dodging the draft. However, even if the government does not fund them and instead those institutions attract money from elsewhere, that still does not exempt them from the laws and societal obligations that everyone else is tied down with. They are citizens like anyone else and the mandatory draft applies to them equally, even if they do not get the budgets they want. 

This financial independence will not secure them quiet on this front. They need the financial independence and should continue working toward it, but they should not expect that this will effect a release from the claims that they must share the burden. the suggestion that freeing themselves from the government budgets would win them quiet from the draft was always a red herring and a false equivalence.

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