Weekly Commentary: Shas Thinks Its Army Serving Voters Will Forget
Dr. Aaron Lerner 27 August 2026

I know I’m a bit emotional.

Each time I come out of the HaShalom train station in Tel Aviv I have two reactions.

First, I look up.

I see the extraordinary skyline. Building after building, each with its own beautiful design.

And I am overwhelmed with pride.

This is what we have built - and are building!

Then I remember what I saw when I just passed through the train station.

The walls inside are plastered with memorial stickers.

Young faces.

Soldiers who are no longer with us.

And I think about the price.

"Here’s what we accomplished.

And here’s the price.**

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that our terrible losses couldn't have been reduced.

Just that, regardless of how smart and nimble we are, our very survival ultimately hinges on our willingness to make terrible sacrifices when necessary.

I think that’s a winning message for some politician in this election.

Because this election we cannot afford to forget this painful reality.

And apparently Shas is counting on us forgetting.

Shas opened its election campaign with an extraordinarily well-produced video.

A father is preparing to make Kiddush Friday night with his wife and his yeshiva-student son.

But the father pauses for a moment in hope.

His other son is still making his way home.

He is a soldier.

Finally the soldier comes through the door.

His father embraces him.

His yeshiva-student brother tells him that he prayed for him and for the soldiers.

The soldier thanks his brother for learning Torah.

Beautiful?

Touching?

Coming from Shas, insulting.

Because while Shas asks us to be moved by the soldier coming home for Shabbat, its own spiritual leader, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, has been telling yeshiva students what to do when they receive draft notices.

Don’t go.

Tear them up.

He even proudly related that his own grandson received a draft notice, tore it up and threw it into the toilet - just as Rabbi Yosef had instructed him.

This as the Shas politicians have been in the forefront of efforts to legalize what would effectively waive the obligation to serve the country for anyone recorded as learning in a yeshiva (I use the term "recorded" intentionally).

Think about the message in that campaign video.

One son goes to the army.

One son never will serve.

Only one of those sons can be ordered into Gaza.

Only one can be sent into Lebanon.

Only one can be called from his wife and children for another round of reserve duty.

Only one may become another face on a future sticker on the walls of HaShalom Station.

This isn’t an argument against Torah study as an integral part of an individual's life or of our collective existence.

It is an argument against a political party embracing soldiers in a campaign video while fighting to ensure that many tens of thousands of young men do not have to join them.

The reaction to the Shas video shows that I’m hardly alone in finding this offensive.

Bereaved family members were among those who reacted with fury.

One bereaved father put the contradiction in brutally simple terms: while some fathers can still embrace the son returning home from the army, many fathers since October 7 cannot.

That is the reality Shas apparently hopes a touching Kiddush scene will make us forget.

I don’t want to forget.

I want to remember both images every time I leave HaShalom Station.

"Look up at what we built.

Look at the walls and remember what it cost."

There is something profoundly wrong with asking the people carrying the burden - and the families paying the ultimate price - to applaud a political fiction in which refusing a draft notice and answering one are presented as equivalent contributions.

Shas knows it has a problem.

Otherwise, it wouldn’t have opened its campaign with a soldier rushing home for Kiddush.

The question is whether the huge number of traditionally Shas voters whose families serve in the IDF also feel that this video is enough to make them forget.

This election, no one cannot afford to forget.

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IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis

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Arab-Israeli relations

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