Rav Yaakov Shapiro at Anti Draft Demonstration in Brussels

Description

The Orthodox Jewish communities from UK, France, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium demonstrated in front of the European Union's headquarters in Brussels to protest the current plan of the Israeli government to draft Orthodox Jews into its army. Rabbi Shapiro explains that while a state has a right to require its citizens to serve in its military, Israel, claiming to be the Nation-State of the Jews, indoctrinates its recruits with its version of Jewish identity (i.e. Zionism). Jewish identity, being a religious concept is beyond the rights of a state to define, and it is therefore undemocratic and beyond the rights of Israel to demand that its citizens go through its Zionist indoctrination camp. so long as Israel insists on not only being the State of the Israelis but "the State of the Jews" as well, and indoctrinating its recruits with that version of Jewishness, Orthodox Jews have no obligation to go through Israel's Jewish-identity indoctrination.