Unity on screen, torn orders in the toilet: The inconceivable gap in the Shas campaign
The Shas party has launched an election campaign presenting a family idyll around the Shabbat table between a yeshiva student and his soldier brother, aiming to appeal to the traditional public. However, a review of the statements by the party's spiritual leadership over the last two years, calling on draft-age youth to tear up draft orders and flush them down the toilet, and forbidding enlistment even for those who do not study, reveals a completely different reality.
The Shas party launched its new election campaign last night (Saturday), and the chosen message was clear and conciliatory: unity. In the first video released by the party, an Israeli family is shown around the Shabbat table. In the center of the frame: one son is studying in a yeshiva, and next to him is his brother wearing an IDF uniform. The message seeks to convey a shared destiny — each contributes to the people of Israel in their own way.
The media move is well-targeted at Shas's traditional target audience, which accounts for about four mandates. After a long period of political radicalization, the party is trying to restore public support and embrace again the public that sees service in the IDF as a supreme value. All this, while the party chairman Aryeh Deri continues his frantic efforts to pass the draft exemption law.
However, beneath the veneer of unity in the video, hides an ideological doctrine that is completely different. An examination of the statements by the party's spiritual leadership over the last two years raises a picture of a complete disconnect between the conciliatory message to voters and the unequivocal instructions given in practice.
"As if they forced us to desecrate the Sabbath"
Shas's spiritual leader and former Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, leads a militant line against the IDF. Already in March 2024, he clarified his doctrine:
"The tribe of Levi is exempt from being drafted into the army. They are not taken under any circumstances, whatever happens. If they force us to go to the army, we will all travel abroad."
In the same breath, he added a jab at the army's capabilities: "All these secular people don't understand that without the kollels and yeshivas, there would be no success for the army... without the Torah... anyway, the army doesn't always succeed... we saw how the army succeeded on Simchat Torah."
The elder of the Shas Council of Torah Sages, Rabbi Moshe Maya, aligned and sharpened the tone in June 2024, when he compared military service to the uprooting of religion from its foundation: "Drafting into the army is a transgression against religion. We have a clear Halacha that tells us that it is forbidden for a yeshiva student to enlist in the army. If they enter the yeshiva halls to draft us, we will resist. It is as if they forced us to desecrate the Sabbath." Rabbi Maya even determined firmly on that occasion that "whoever goes to the army today will come out of it a Sabbath desecrator."
Tearing up the orders, going to prison
With the progress of the draft procedures, the rhetoric moved to the practical stage — an open call for active law-breaking. In July 2024, Rabbi Yosef instructed:
"Whoever receives a draft order, tear up the draft order, do not go. He is in the Torah, he is a soldier in the army of God. Do not be afraid of them."
To dispel the fear of the consequences, Rabbi Yosef promised full backing: "If they take him to prison, the head of the yeshiva will come with him."
In December 2024, Rabbi Yosef told his students: "I said that if a draft order arrives, tear it up. Do you have a toilet at home? There is no house without a toilet. Tear it up, throw it in the toilet and flush the water. Nothing, do not consider, do not be afraid, the Holy One, blessed be He, is with you."
In addition, it seems that the ethnic consideration still plays a central role in the opposition. In January 2025, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef claimed that the atmosphere in the army is directed from above against his voting public: "The simple soldiers are Sephardic. The officers are Ashkenazi, and they are constantly doing things against religion. They laugh at the religious... it affects." To substantiate his claims, Rabbi Yosef testified about tours he conducted in the IDF: "I went to Tze'elim, I went to the Intelligence Corps and I went to the Submarine Corps. I saw with my own eyes the corruption that is there... What, shall we send them to the army to be corrupted? They will go to the army, they will go down."
