We have a serious problem with the draft of yeshiva boys. They are threatening us that they wont give us budget monies. What - do we live for the monies from these goyim? We won't send a single one to the the army - not a single one. We are the army of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that's why we are called [in the Torah] "Yotzei Tzava".
-- Rav Shalom Cohen, spiritual leader of Shas, while paying a shiva call to Rav Gershon Edelstein and talking about the ramifications of the draft law
there are some groups of people that could maybe be thought of as honestly saying what they mean, saying something like this. Shas, living and surviving by all that government funding, and regularly fighting for it and for it to be increased, and its school system only surviving because of it, is not one of those groups. Funny how dismissive the Shas leader is of all that money that he so dearly needs for his organizations..let's see him put his money where his mouth is and give it all up.
I am a bit surprised he calls the Israeli secular government "goyim". That too is not really the way of Shas. Rav Ovadya said some harsh things about various groups, but Shas is very close, or at least tries to be, with the secular community in Israel and with the secular government. It is strange to see them become so extreme. It is more appropriate for the Eida types, though they dont really call them goyim either, or the Peleg people who do actually call them goyim. Just the other day Rav Tzvi Friedman of the Peleg, one of its leaders since the death of Rav Auerbach, called them goyim
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