Ahead of the haredi rally against enlisting yeshiva students and arresting those who refuse to appear for enlistment, Rabbi Dr. Eliyahu Zini issued a severe ruling forbidding attendance at the march.
In a Thursday statement, Rabbi Zini stated that "it is completely forbidden to participate in the protest, and anyone who participates in it is stabbing all of the IDF soldiers serving on the front lines in their backs, trampling the victims of this terrible war that has already lasted two years, and deeply hurting all of the bereaved families, who unfortunately are too many."
Rabbi Zini, who is the president of the Or Veyeshua hesder yeshiva and educational institutions, and a former rabbi of the Technion in Haifa, added, "As a rabbi, scion of a family of rabbis, but educated in Jewish institutions in northern Africa, I must say that there is absolutely no connection worthy of the Torah's honor between the Torah which I was taught as a young child and this demonstration."
"I am well aware, maybe more than most of those participating in the demonstration today, of the wrongs done to soldiers who keep the Torah, which are a direct result of improper education which leads to the hatred of everything holy. But I am also aware of the degeneration of values which accompanies some of the politicians claiming to represent the Torah. But this is not the time or place to discuss the roots of these problems.
"What is clear beyond any doubt is that this demonstration crushes our nation, tears us to pieces even more deeply than what we unfortunately have experienced in the past few decades in our holy Land, harms the Torah very severely, and will require decades to fix this damage and the distance from the Torah that will come out of it! Therefore anyone who listens to me will sit safely and serenely without fear of evil, and the blessings of G-d will be upon him and all those who accompany him."
He also noted that "all the claims which say that this demonstration is an attempt at peace in the nation do not pass muster, because there is no connection between peace in the nation and this demonstration; rather, the opposite is true."
Rabbi Zini also recalled the Peace Now protest in 1982, which claimed to be in the name of "imaginary peace," which later "'proved itself,' since "our Land has been flooded only with rivers of blood since then."