Security Fears Cause NY Haredim to cancel Manhattan anti-draft rally

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http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/NY-haredim-cancel-Manhattan-anti-draft-rally-310518

A major rally protesting the draft of Israeli yeshiva students has been canceled due to security concerns in the wake of last week’s Boston Marathon bombing, a spokesman for Agudath Israel of America told The Jerusalem Post. The rally, scheduled for Sunday in downtown Manhattan, was intended as a forum for prayers for “heavenly mercy” in the face of the possibility that full-time yeshiva students may be required to serve in the Israeli army.

Such an expansion of the draft would be “a devastating body blow against Klal Yisroel’s [the Jewish collective’s] lofty status as the Am HaTorah [nation of Torah],” wrote Agudath Israel’s executive vice president Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel in a letter promoting the event.

“The main purposes of the [gathering] will be to help our own community better understand the nature of the [woes] facing our brethren in Eretz Yisroel if the proposed new policy is implemented, to express our deep concern about this development, and to pray for heavenly mercy in the face of this impending decree,” he explained.