Hagit Rein, mother of IDF soldier Benaya Rein h”yd, said Sunday that she hoped that rabbis from the religious Zionist sector would not participate in the mass hareidi demonstration against the impending law to draft yeshiva students into the army. Doing so, she said, would be an insult to all religious IDF soldiers, such as Benaya, who was killed in the Second Lebanon War.
Rein made the comments on Galey Israel Radio Sunday morning, after calling the station and asking to be allowed to express herself. “Sometimes it is difficult to hold one's tongue,” she said. “I am very much in favor of the study of Torah, and in my opinion our [religious Zionist] yeshiva students should continue their studies, and the IDF soldiers should continue their work, which we pray they will be successful in.”
Earlier, several religious Zionist rabbis said that they would participate in the event, but some canceled their participation Sunday morning in the wake of a disrespectful article in the hareidi Yated Ne'eman newspaper against Rabbi Haim Druckman, a major leader in the Religious Zionist community. Rein said that she hoped none would participate in the event.
“I would not want to see religious Zionist rabbis at this event, as I remember my son's army service,” she said. “I believe students can learn Torah and be a part of the IDF. All of my sons learned Torah and served in the army, and I have a daughter married to a Torah scholar who is to be promoted to an officer's status. They learn Torah and observe it and serve in the army,” she added.
Her son, she said, had a friend who was a true Torah scholar – and told him that he should continue learning, while he and others soldiers defended him. “'I am in the army only to protect you,' Benaya would tell him,” she said. “There are some true scholars like this, but for the many others who are not on that level, they should go and serve.”