Students talk with Bnei Brak residents
Students talk with Bnei Brak residentsYoni Kempinski

As Israeli politicians continued to quarrel on Wednesday over a new draft law that would ensure equal sharing of the burden, students from Bar Ilan University came to the streets of Bnei Brak to speak to local residents.

The Student Association at Bar Ilan has expressed its solidarity with those who are protesting and calling for equal sharing in the burden, and some of the members of the association attended a demonstration outside the Tel Aviv Museum last Saturday evening.

The students explained that the purpose of the visit to Bnei Brak was to bring different population sectors together and to conduct dialogue on the issue of sharing the burden.

“We’re trying to do things in a different way,” Erez Naim, a student at Bar Ilan, told Arutz Sheva. “We’re trying to talk to [the residents in Bnei Brak]. We’re trying to explain to them how we feel about being the only people who go into the army. We want them to share with us, but in a better way. We’re trying to get them to listen.”

Naim said that the students, who brought candies for the residents, are focusing on dialogue rather than arguing.

“We’re hearing that they feel as though no one is trying to understand them, that we’re going against them and against the world of Torah,” he said. “They feel that they are doing something for the community, that they are trying to save the Jewish world and that we’re coming to destroy all that.”

“We came to listen, to try to understand, and we’re trying to say that we can things together,” said Naim, adding, “There are some people who really want to talk and some who don’t, but we feel as though we must keep trying.”