JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Shulem Weiss was a budding singer in the Eda Chareidis with a bright future ahead of him. A grandson of Rabbi Shimon Weiss, the director of the highly accredited Badatz Eda Chareidis kashrus organization and a great-nephew of Rabbi Yitzchak Tuvia Weiss, the leader of the Eda Chareidis, Weiss’s route to success was well prepared. However Shulem had a secret dream – he wished to enlist in the IDF, an anathema for his close-knit, anti-Zionist community. After Weiss revealed his dream, he found himself without a place to live and his family cut off all relations with him.
Join our WhatsApp groupSubscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
At the same time, Weiss decided together with his wife (whom he married at a very young age) to leave orthodox Judaism. The two eventually divorced and Weiss wandered around the streets of Eilat, hoping to be conscripted by the army despite the fact that he had been granted an exemption a few years earlier.
Shulem Weiss when he was Chareidi
Weiss found himself totally alone. “It’s very difficult, I didn’t know how to take it and how to move on from here. We are young people with no life experience but we do try to deal with everything. There’s no family, nobody to talk to and tell them about what’s going on with me and how I am managing.” Initially his family members stayed in touch with him but “recently nobody is in touch with me after they saw I was serious about my plans.”
After wandering for half a year, Weiss found out about the Osei Chayil association, which provides a foster family for Chareidi youths who have been thrown out of their homes due to enlisting or leaving their faith. Aharon Granot, an Israeli reporter and author, established special housing in different places in Israel for these youths and serves as a surrogate father to them. Granot says he has youths whose parents sat Shiva for them when they enlisted in the army. Others were thrown out in the freezing cold and ended up sleeping in synagogues until Osei Chayil picked them up off the streets.
“There are hundreds of such youths,” Granot adds, and he works as a one-man organization to provide them with basic equipment, accomodation and a family atmosphere, as well as providing support while they are in the army, “like a father accompanies his children.” Even after they complete their service Granot, a father of 5 himself, is there to receive them. “Nobody is going to receive them so we support them, prepare them for further studies and give them basic requirements.”
Granot says that he has both Chareidi youths who observe all the Mitzvos as well as totally secular youths. “I’m not G-d’s policeman, everyone does what he wants,” Granot, a self-styled Gerer Chasid who wears a huge knitted kippah, adds. “Our soldiers have paid the highest price for their wish to serve in the IDF.”
What a horrible hit piece on one of the gedolei yisroel. Why is it important to mention who is his great uncle?? and where exactly in the story does his grandfather come in? We’re always lectured by the so called enlightened Jews how not to judge someone else, and all of a sudden we are judging somebody for his great nefuews sin, If you want to write about troubled youth who are willing to come forth, and talk about their misgivings, leave it at that, no need to push in every relative of his, especially when there is no connection between them in this particular story
I didn’t know that to push news about children and/or relatives becoming not-frum is a Kovod for the Parents and relatives especially if they are Oiskay B’tzorchay Tzibbur people. I guess we learn new Halachos each day…….
Nebach . I hope he finds his place. He need not leave orthdoxy to sereve in the army. Although, Meah shearim and the edia are all very holy jews, if thats not your way, become mizrachi. Lets all pray that shulem find his way back to torah judiasm to at least observing the 3 main mitzvos and sending his children to cheder
Not sure, though, why he had to become non-religious. There are plenty of soldiers from the chareidi community. There are also organizations that help them out and give them a religious environment when they don’t have where to go (Like Chayal el Chayal and others).
The Gavad (Reb Yitzchok Tovia Weiss) had an elder brother in Melbourne Australia, who became secular arriving top Australia. He had one son called Peter who is a solicitor in Melbourne. He has excellent relations with his uncle and calls him Uncle Tibi. The Gavad is a true gentleman.
they all wind up coming back. Its a youth fantasy to become a police officer but his roots will hunt him forever and i have seen many who came back because they see there is nothing nicer then a yiddishe home
Maybe he wanted to join the einekel of the Satmar Rebbe who joined the IDF a few years ago.
what is really missing here is the reason why he, and so many other young people, leave religious life.
MY opinion, based on observation of several frum neighbors whose children left the religious world, is that the parents do not provide an enjoyable framework for their children. Almost all of my neighbors whose kids parted are into leaning Torah to the extent that they do not have picnics and vacations with their kids, but rather expect and demand that the kids follow them to the beis medresh.
Like to hear other opinions…..
Rav Moshe Sternbuch has a grandson who joined up and served proudly in the IDF. A grandson is a little closer than a great-nephew.
The Shulchan aruch states mfarnace aniya akum, so what’s the problem with supporting a nice Jewish boy who is protecting people from danger.
What a very very very sad story. BeH he should do tshuva.
I don’t know why these people think they should go totally off instead of just becoming a normal person who’s shomer torah umitzvos.
Living in Israel can’t be easy for anyone who wants to keep the Torah in the face of unrelenting Zionist shmad.
So we should feel sorry for both this young man, his ex and their families who must all be hurting from all of this.
The border police have done a fine job for years jailing Jews that had been attacked by Muslim terrorists and persecuting Jews who dare drinking water in the temple mount. Bravo! He has done a total 180 degree turn. Now he will be secular kicking down the religious.
Interesting that we have exposed in this comment field the fact that numerous Trump supporters are also Israelhaters. No wonder some of them joined with the neo-Nazis to storm the US Capitol.
The idf has plenty of frum soldiers but lacks enough officers due to liberal/Soros funded groups opposing it
To join the israeli army you must have something wrong mentally. Thirty percent of secular Jews avoid joining this army since they are run by idiotic pork eating politicians. They don’t care about the soldiers lives. You fight with your hard tied behind your back. You can’t shoot a terrorist unless you shoot a warning shot first. They are more concerned about looking like liberal goyim allowing homosexuals and trans to be part of their army. This is not king Davids army. It’s Eisavs army
Nebach. You see what happened when you want/go to the trafa Army.