Beitar Illit Mayor Meir Rubinstein, who also serves as chairman of the Forum of Chareidi Local Authority Heads, delivered a forceful warning Wednesday night over the arrests of yeshiva students and the ongoing draft crisis, declaring that the chareidi public will not accept efforts to criminalize Torah learners.

Speaking on Kol Chai’s Hamahadura Hamerkazit with host Avi Blum, Rubinstein said the current situation has created fear and anxiety throughout the yeshiva world.

“I haven’t changed—the reality has,” Rubinstein said at the start of the interview. “We are living through a disgraceful situation in which thousands of yeshiva students are walking around in constant fear, even terror. Every yeshiva student feels like a fugitive. This cannot continue, and it cannot simply be accepted.”

Rubinstein noted that since the founding of the State of Israel, prime ministers from across the political spectrum—including David Ben-Gurion, Yitzchak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Yitzchak Shamir, and Menachem Begin—supported arrangements that exempted yeshiva students from military service.

“After 70 years, this is not going to work. It simply will not work,” he said.

Asked whether chareidi municipal leaders should halt cooperation with the police and state authorities, Rubinstein replied that the damage has already been done.

“There is no greater harm than taking our entire community and turning everyone into criminals,” he said.

He stressed that the chareidi public would not resort to violence but would pursue other forms of resistance, including public protest, separation from government institutions, and a broad outcry against the policy.

Rubinstein argued that no democratic country could successfully impose such a dramatic change on such a large segment of its population.

“Maybe that can happen in North Korea, or in the Russia of the czars, in places like that,” he said.

He added that municipal leaders who interact with residents daily witness firsthand the fear and distress affecting yeshiva students and their families.

Addressing the performance of the chareidi political parties, Rubinstein acknowledged that their efforts had fallen short but declined to place blame on individual lawmakers.

“There is not a single chareidi Knesset member who did not work on this issue,” he said. “But in terms of results, the failure has been total.”

At the same time, he insisted that the setback in the Knesset cannot lead the chareidi public to surrender, close their Gemaros, or accept a reality in which yeshiva students are treated as criminals.

Turning to the prospect of a broader public campaign, Rubinstein said the chareidi community should learn from the tactics employed by opponents of judicial reform.

“We were promised judicial reform, and why didn’t judicial reform happen? Because of pressure from the streets,” he said. “We are now going to take to the streets exactly like Kaplan. The entire country will burn, just like Kaplan. They taught us a lesson.”

Rubinstein argued that the issue requires no complicated strategy, only a firm and united public stance.

“You do not touch what is sacred. ‘Do not touch My anointed ones.’ It is not going to happen. Period.”

He vowed that the chareidi community would never accept a situation in which yeshiva students and their families—whom he described as a population of more than one million people—are transformed into fugitives.

“That is not going to happen during wartime, during peacetime, during difficult times, or during times of prosperity,” he said.

Asked whether the draft dispute is affecting the chareidi community’s place within Israel’s right-wing camp, Rubinstein responded that he remains firmly identified with the political right and deeply committed to Eretz Yisroel.

At the same time, he emphasized that the priorities of the chareidi public are clear.

“For us, the right begins first with Toras Yisroel, and only afterward with Eretz Yisroel,” he said.

He concluded by arguing that the real question is no longer whether the chareidi community remains part of the right, but whether the right itself remains true to its principles.

“The chareidi public is still on the right,” Rubinstein said. “But if the right is not protecting yeshiva students, then the question is not whether the chareidim have left the right. The question is whether the right has remained the right.”

{Matzav.com}