Bereaved father Hagay Lober on Sunday published a sharply worded response to remarks by former Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who claimed during his weekly lecture that the change in US President Donald Trump's attitude toward Israel stems from the arrests of haredi draft evaders.
In a post titled, "Why did Trump turn against us?" Lober wrote sarcastically that "there is not the slightest doubt that the secular public, or the religious Zionists, or the soldiers and police officers are to blame."
He went on to criticize those whom he said have not shared the burden of the war.
"Those who have stood by for two and a half years while blood is being spilled, who have closed their ears to their brothers' pleas for help, who continue with their lives as though nothing has happened, who go on bein hazmanim vacations and trips, who proudly praise draft evaders and dodgers, and who dance outside prisons while others bury their sons-there is no doubt they are as pure as snow and more spotless than pearls," he wrote.
Lober continued, saying that according to this line of thinking, God "ignores the tears of war widows and orphans, the exhausted eyes of heroic reservists, and the wives carrying the burden of their households alone, and punishes the people of Israel solely because of them."
"The pain is unbearable," he added. "The Torah of kindness is clothed in sackcloth, and the name of God is being desecrated."
He concluded by addressing the haredi public directly: "And where are you, the haredi public? Where is the common sense of a community filled with kindness and compassion? Tell me-is this Torah?"
Lober's remarks came in response to Rabbi Yosef's weekly lecture, in which he addressed the issue of yeshiva student enlistment and relations between Israel and the US.
"Since the days of Ben-Gurion-may the name of the wicked rot-yeshiva students have been exempt from military service," Rabbi Yosef said. He added, "The Torah protects us. Trump turned against us because of the persecution of yeshiva students by that wicked Jezebel. She is the one giving the orders," referring to Israel's Attorney General.