Among those who participated in the "March for Conscription" on Wednesday in Jerusalem, which called for the conscription of those in the haredi community in the IDF, was the Rabbi of the town of Shoham and Chairman of the Tzohar organization, Rabbi David Stav.

Speaking with Arutz Sheva-Israel National News from the march, Rabbi Stav says it is rare for him to partake in such an event. "My way to express myself is through writing, through talking to the people, not through physical participation in demonstrations."

Rabbi Stav explains that this time, he chose to hit the streets because "we can not continue anymore without raising our voices, yelling, screaming, praying, because we understand that just this morning we started a new action in Gaza. Another battalion started to participate.

He relates that he has been seeing "so many of my students and congregants who were called from their universities and yeshivot again to serve for the fourth and fifth time. It's breaking up families, it's destroying jobs, and it's impossible that one tribe will carry the responsibility of the state, and another tribe, which has tens of thousands of men, would not be a part of that mission."

Drawing from the Mishna in Avot (Ethics of Our Fathers), Rabbi Stav states that "carrying the burden of our society is one of the 48 ways that the Torah is given to us. The minimum that we can expect is that there would be no tribe that's excluded from that holy mission."

On a practical level, Rabbi Stav calls on the military and the government to be sincere and determined to draft the haredim. He claims that "instead of that, the government is currently doing the opposite: it encourages people not to go to the army by giving them so many incentives and benefits that there is no reason for them to go to the army. On the other hand, it does not encourage anybody to go to the army.

He says that the army has to "show it's serious by fitting itself and the conditions so they are suitable for the haredi soldiers, they are not doing enough, and stop lying to the people by telling them that thousands are drafting; when we know that they count people that were haredi five or six years ago, and stopped being observant a long time ago."

According to Rabbi Stav, "These two institutions that are supposed to be the first ones to be interested in drafting the haredi society, they are not doing their mission. Once they do their mission, at least the big part of the haredi society will be drafted."