Sunday, July 14, 2013

Army Service Is Not the Dati-Leumi Sole Characteristic..

So another Shas rabbi has decided that the Dati-Leumi public is Amalek:

Rabbi Shalom Cohen, a senior member of the Council of Sages of the Sephardic Shas party attacked the religious Zionist sector over the weekend, calling its members “Amalek.”
Being Amalek is actually a demotion of sorts in Shas. The Dati-Leumi public used to just be a "House of goyim". However there is no need to fear. Naftali Bennett is here to defend us:

ו“ר ”הבית היהודי“, השר נפתלי בנט, גינה הבוקר בחריפות את ההתבטאות הזו וכתב בעמוד הפייסבוק שלו כי ”ברגעים אלה, אלפי חובשי כיפות סרוגות נמצאים מהגבול בסוריה ועד גבול מצרים, מרמת המחט"ים ועד אחרוני החיילים, ויורקים דם כדי להגן, גם על כבוד הרב. בימים אלה מתקיימות אזכרות לחבריי לנשק ממלחמת לבנון השניה, שמסרו נפשם, בהם חילונים ובהם חובשי כיפות סרוגות, חלקם נפלו עטורי צל"שים על גבורתם. להם גם, למען השם, קורא הרב עמלק“.
Roughly translated:
The head of the Bayit Hayehudi party,  Minister Naftali Bennett strongly condemned this morning the statement, writing on his Facebook page that "At this very moment, thousands of Dati-Leumi soldiers are  found from the Syrian border to the Egyptian border, from brigadier to the lowest ranked soldiers, "spitting blood" to defend, among others the honorable rabbi. In these days  ceremonies are being held to the memory of my brothers in arms from the Second Lebanon War, who sacrificed their lives, including non religious and Dati-Leumi soldiers, some of them with decorations for their bravery. They are who, (For God's sake) the rabbi is calling Amalek. 
Only after he gushes about the Dati-Leumi contribution to the army, does he also mention some other non-Amalek attributes of the Dati-Leumi public. Hey, we learn Torah too!

I'm certainly proud of my IDF service as a paratrooper. But is serving in the army really the defining characteristic of the Dati Leumi public? is that really our first (and largest) claim to not being Amalek?

One can't help but notice that for ex-commando Bennett it will always come back to the army.

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