The Gur Hasidic community will hold a central prayer rally Monday evening led personally by the Gur Rebbe outside the gates of Military Prison 10, in protest of the imprisonment of a yeshiva student from the community who failed to report for his draft summons and was sentenced to 20 days in custody, according to Kikar HaShabbat.
The rally is set for 9:30 p.m. near the military prison and will include evening prayers, the recitation of Psalms and remarks meant to stir the crowd, as part of the protest over the student's detention.
The student, from the Sfat Emet yeshiva, was arrested last week after reporting three separate times to induction offices in an attempt to regularize his status, according to sources within the Hasidic community.
Sources said the young man's original induction date fell on a Monday, and he did report that day, but mistakenly went to the induction office in Jerusalem instead of the one in Haifa. Officials in Jerusalem redirected him to Haifa, but by the time he arrived there it was already late in the day, and staff sent him home with instructions to return the following day. On Tuesday he returned to the Haifa induction office, but according to those close to him, his enlistment process was not advanced and he was sent home again. When he came back a third time on Wednesday, military officials informed him that because two days had passed since his official induction date, he was now classified as a draft evader.
As a result, the young man was tried on the spot and sentenced to 20 days at Military Prison 10. Members of the Gur community argue that the case reflects bureaucratic delay and mishandling by the induction offices that led directly to his arrest, despite what they describe as his genuine efforts to regularize his status.
Ahead of the rally, senior figures in the Hasidic community completed coordination with Israel Police, which is expected to provide security for the event. Community leaders were seen at the prison Sunday morning finalizing arrangements for the gathering.
The planning follows a visit last Saturday night by Rabbi Shimon Shisha, an activist who works on behalf of yeshiva students on draft-related issues, who held an extended conversation with the Gur Rebbe. The Rebbe took an interest in the details of Shisha's work and offered him a blessing, with the visit coming against the backdrop of the Sfat Emet student's arrest.
A similar protest rally was held at the same site several weeks ago, drawing thousands of Hasidim. It remains unclear at this stage whether Monday's rally will draw a similarly massive crowd or a smaller gathering, though the Rebbe's personal presence is expected to draw a large turnout regardless.
The Gur rally joins a wave of protests that have swept the Haredi world in recent days over the detention of yeshiva students. This past week, Hasidim from the Sanz community held a large protest rally outside Prison 10, drawing close to five thousand participants along with crowds from the broader Haredi public. At that gathering, the Sanz Rebbe delivered a central address in which he broke down in tears, declaring that nothing like this had happened in the Holy Land in many years, with Torah scholars being pursued in this manner.
