Rabbi Meir Zvi Bergman, senior rabbi of the Degel Hatorah faction's Council of Torah Sages, spoke out harshly against the enlistment of yeshiva students in the IDF.
Speaking at a Wednesday conference of yeshiva deans, Rabbi Bergman, son-in-law of haredi leader Rabbi Shach and dean of the Rashbi Yeshiva, said, "Everyone knows that even one day that a boy is in the army is truly destruction. The entire war now is a war for the King, for the Holy One, Blessed Be He."
"We must know that it is forbidden to cooperate with them."
Slamming Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, he added, "Then one stupid guy comes and sends out draft orders. We are obligated to sacrifice our lives for this."
On Thursday morning, Yated Ne'eman published a letter from Rabbi Dov Lando, head of the Slobodka Yeshiva and leader of the Lithuanian-haredi community, calling for yeshiva students not to appear for call-up, "or even respond to the initial draft order."
"We do not have the ability to rely on agreements and understandings with the military's leaders, since their hands are tied with cables of iron by the judges, and the entire response to the decrees of the echelon is simply to cave to their war against Hashem and His Torah," Rabbi Lando wrote in the letter.
"Now the situation is that the echelons have announced war against the Torah world, and they are the ones who opened a front and came to change the order which existed all through the years, and ordered the army to begin a process of actual enlistment of yeshiva students."
Rabbi Lando also emphasized that, "The instruction to the yeshiva students is not to appear at all at the Draft Offices, and not to respond to any sort of call-up."
Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch, also a head of the yeshiva, also spoke out against the draft, saying, "This is a battle of self-sacrifice. This is not a regular battle, we have been through many religious battles over the past decades, but now this is a battle of self-sacrifice - even if the boys need to go to prison."
He added: "The entire instruction of Rabbi Shteinman, of blessed memory, to appear at the Draft Offices, was only when there was discourse with the haredi community. The moment there is no discourse and every proposal we suggest is rejected, then from our perspective as well, there is no discourse."
