Rabbinic Responses to Conscription
Jewish soldiers in the Kaiser’s Army (Germany, World War I)
TRADITION recently published an English-language version of an address delivered by R. Tamir Granot, discussing Haredi draft resistance and responding to R. Yitzchak Yosef’s troubling statements about evading army service. R. Granot charged: “Is it reasonable to leave the Holy Land to avoid defending it in a milhemet mitzva for the salvation of the entire nation? Are we in the Russian Empire? Is this the Czar’s army? Are Jewish boys being dragged off as cantonists? You are the Rishon LeZion—for Zion, not the Chief Rabbi of Brooklyn or Baghdad. You have responsibility for the entire People of Israel.”
This reminded us of an item in our archive by Prof. Judith Bleich, “Rabbinic Responses to Conscription” (Winter 2006). When asked for her thoughts, Prof. Bleich responded:
Following Emancipation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when large numbers of Jews were conscripted into European armies, the broader Jewish community expressed sharply divergent attitudes. Traditionalist segments perceived army service as a calamity while liberal segments welcomed the opportunity as a medium for achievement of political and social equality. As demonstrated in the sources cited in my TRADITION essay, and in the more extensive discussion in my Defenders of the Faith (Touro University Press, 2020), 174-226, extreme prejudice and antisemitism persisted in the armed forces and equality remained an illusion. Particularly fraught and tragic were instances in which Jews found themselves facing fellow Jews in opposing armies. It is instructive to note that the prevailing negative response among rabbinic scholars to army service was notably absent during World War II when fighting against Nazi oppressors was viewed as exemplary. Assuredly, the current Israeli struggle against Hamas is a milhemet mitzva in the nature of ezrat Yisra’el mi-yad tzar. IDF forces battling against a cruel and implacable foe are engaged in an heroic effort to safeguard the security and lives of fellow Jews. May the Ribbono shel Olam grant us every success.
Read Judith Bleich’s “Rabbinic Responses to Conscription” at TraditionOnline.
Judith Bleich is a Professor of Judaic Studies at Touro College, and a member of TRADITION’s editorial board.