For Iran, Hatred of the U.S. is “Neither Transient nor Emotional”

This year, the Shiite holiday of Ashura coincided with another Iranian national holiday: the anniversary of the takeover of the American embassy on November 4, 1979. Iranian leaders used the occasion to make clear their attitudes toward Israel and the United States and thereby respond indirectly to President Obama’s fourth personal letter to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. The following excerpt, introduced and translated by A. Savyon, Y. Mansharof, and E. Kharazi, is from an interview with Ahmad Khatami, a close associate of Khamenei:

As Western [officials] say, “Even if the nuclear issue is resolved, the other issues will remain.” We too say that even if the nuclear issue is resolved, we will continue to say “Death to America,” because this motto is anchored in our faith. The Western side is the symbol of arrogance, and the motto “There is no God but Allah” is the repudiation of the arrogance. . . . This year, the chant of “Death to America” will be more fundamental and more profound than in previous years. . . . The claim that we use religious slogans to preserve the regime is wrong. The Iranian nation uses mottos from Islam and the Quran properly and appropriately. . . . Those who misunderstand [the religion] and are passive vis-à-vis America [i.e., Iran’s pragmatic camp] call this passivity wise. But it is not wise. It is humiliating. . . . The mottos “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” are taken from the tenets of the religion.

Read more at MEMRI

More about: anti-Americanism, Anti-Zionism, Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society