There are moments when moral clarity demands we call out dangerous nonsense, regardless of its source. Rabbi Yitzchak Koldetzky's recent performance on Radio Kol Barama represents one such moment. After orchestrating demonstrations at Prison 10, this man of supposed moral authority took to the airwaves to deliver a breathtaking assault on the Israel Defense Forces. The army, he declared, embodies "idolatry, bloodshed, and immorality." It "doesn't care about anything." And lest anyone miss his point, he elaborated: even the IDF's best programs are "a bluff," staffed by "missionaries and liars" who seduce young recruits before poisoning them with "impurity."
This matters beyond the obvious offense to those who serve. Foreign correspondents feast on such pronouncements, treating them as windows into Israeli soul-searching when they're nothing of the sort. Yes, Israelis argue fiercely about everything, including their military. It's a national pastime, this verbal combat that outsiders mistake for existential crisis. But Koldetzky's venom transcends healthy democratic discourse. It's character assassination masquerading as religious instruction.
Consider the breathtaking audacity. Here stands a rabbi who views the IDF's efforts to draft Haredim as nothing less than "a war of annihilation against Israel." There are currently tens of thousands of soldiers defending Jewish people from an actual “war of annihilation against Israel.”
When religious leaders weaponize their authority against the state's defenders, they do more than insult soldiers. They provide ammunition to Israel's enemies while demoralizing the very people who stand between the nation and its would-be destroyers. That's not prophecy. It's sabotage.
