Page 26 - HaMizrachi Chanukah 2021 - USA

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1981 1982
The 100th Volume of Three IDF soldiers are taken captive in the first Lebanon war; Zvi Feldman,
Or HaMizrach is published Zechariah Baumel, a soldier in the Hesder program at Yeshivat Har Etzion, and
Yehudah Katz, a soldier in the Hesder program at Yeshivat Kerem B'Yavneh

The Groundwork is Laid for the Hesder Movement

Yeshiva Students

AT AR

Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Brody

I revered Rav Kook. As fate would have
n April 1948, a 20-year old yeshiva
student at the Mercaz HaRav
it, upon exiting the yeshiva, he ran into
yeshiva, Shear-Yashuv Cohen Rav Kook's son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda, and
{1927-2016), was on a short inquired whether he had somehow
reprieve from his service in the Haga- erred by enlisting in the nascent Jewish
nah. Just months beforehand, the army.
United Nations had voted to partition
Rabbi Zvi Yehuda was outraged by the
Palestine. The Jews accepted the plan,
publication of the handbills, consider-
but the Arabs rejected it, leading to
ing them a distortion of his late father's
a period of violent skirmishes that
views. He promised to publish a treatise
became the first stage of Israel's War
on why fighting for the Jewish home-
of Independence. As the Haganah
land was different from fighting on
pushed for widespread enlist-
behalf of another nation's army. Rabbi
ment, some leading rabbinic
Zvi Yehuda blessed his pupil and sent
scholars, including one of
him back to his post.
the yeshivah's deans, Rabbi
Yaakov Moshe Charlop, pro- Cohen would need that blessing. Over
tested the attempted enlist- the next month, he fought to hold the
ment of their students. besieged Old City of Jerusalem until
They published procla- the outnumbered Jewish fighters were
mations featuring quota- forced to submit to Jordanian forces.
tions from the yeshiva's Cohen helped convince the surviving
founder, Rabbi Avraham fighters to surrender and not create
Yitzchak HaKohen a modern-day Masada by "saving one
Kook, who supported last bullet" for themselves. Severely
draft exemptions wounded, he spent the next nine
for yeshiva students months in Jordanian captivity until
in Britain during he was ultimately freed in a prisoner
World War I. This exchange. While recuperating in Jeru-
came as a shock salem in 1949, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda gave
to Cohen, who him a copy of the promised treatise