Haredi protester in Jerusalem (illustration)
Haredi protester in Jerusalem (illustration)Matanya Tausig/Flash 90

The recent arrest of a haredi yeshiva student sparked angry protests across the country on Wednesday.

Moshe Hazan, a 22-year-old yeshiva student from Elad, had refused to report to an IDF induction center, BeHadrei Haredim reports.

Hazan was arrested by Israeli police this week during a vacation in the southern city of Eilat. He is now reportedly being held in an army jail awaiting trial.

Following the arrest, Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach called upon followers to stage protests across the country calling for Hazan’s immediate release.

“It is obligatory to go out tonight and demonstrate all over the country until the full release of Moshe Hazan, the Torah world’s prisoner who is sanctifying the name of God with his body.”

On Wednesday night around 11:00 p.m., just hours after the beginning of Holocaust Remembrance Day, followers of Rabbi Auerbach gathered for protests in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, and near Modi’in Illit.

When police arrived to break up the demonstrations, witnesses report that protestors called them “Nazis”.

Police detained only 10 protestors, allowing peaceful demonstrators to remain.

“Tonight they [the police] had a new modus operandi,” said one witness. “They only arrested those who were real troublemakers, something that they did not do in the past.”

Auerbach, who leads the Yerushalami Faction, is known for his hardline opposition to the new Israeli draft law. The Yerushalami Faction broke away from the United Torah Judaism party over what Auerbach described as the party’s failure to properly confront the draft issue.

While haredi yeshiva students still automatically receive exemptions from the army, they must first report to an IDF induction center to receive their official exemption. Every year, however, a handful of haredi extremists refuse to turn up, prompting their arrest by authorities and subsequent demonstrations by extreme anti-Zionist factions.