Close to 20,000 Orthodox Jews gathered on Sunday at the Barclays Center basketball arena in Brooklyn to protest the Israeli law mandating Orthodox conscription into the army, which they described as “Israel’s persecution of religious Jews”.
Rabbi David Niederman, who serves as a liaison for the Central Rabbinical Congress, one of the groups involved in the event, told The Jerusalem Post that he views Orthodox conscription to the army as a violation of religious freedom.
“Since 1948, when the government was founded, they understood that there is such a thing as [Yeshiva] students who are studying and they are exempt of military services,” he said. “But for the past few years [Israeli politicians] have been trying to tighten the screw, and basically forcefully recruiting and forcefully bringing them in for military service, to which they object.”
“Unprecedented things happened: there are people who protest those conditions, people who are upset that [Israel] violates their right to their religious adherence,” Rabbi Niederman added. “When they go out and speak their minds, they are badly beaten.”
The rally, lead by members of the anti-Zionist Satmar Hasidic group almost entirely in Yiddish, took place amid unrest in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of Jerusalem, where violent protests have erupted in the past months, over the same issue.

Source: MENA