Thousands of Gerrer hassidim demonstrated outside the walls of Military Prison 10 on Wednesday to protest the arrest of a member of the Hassidic court for draft dodging.
In a rare move, the leader of the Agudat Yisrael Council of Torah Sages and Gerrer Rebbe, Rabbi Yaakov Arieh Alter, attended the demonstration.
Emrei Emes Yeshiva Dean Rabbi Haim Denderovitch addressed the demonstration: "We believe that the entire People of Israel were at the giving of the Torah, even those who today are fighting us over the Torah; their forefathers were also at Mount Sinai, they also heard, 'Woe unto humankind for their contempt towards the Torah.' We did not come in violence, we came in prayer, to pray to G-d that they too repent, to stop having contempt for the Torah."
He attacked the law enforcement establishment's priorities. "There is so much theft, so much vandalism in the country, the police are not going out of their way to stop it. For what are they? For that little lamb. The police found time to deal with those who study Torah. They say that we evade our obligation, our boys and men are enslaved to the Torah, we're evaders? We do not evade our first obligation, but around us, many have evaded the obligations of the Torah, from observing Shabbat, mitzvot, and they call us evaders. They evade the service of G-d."
"In the communist countries under Lenin and Stalin, they took people who learned Torah to jail. We support those who went (to jail), we stand with them," he concluded.