Rav Sholom Ber Sorotzkin: “Our boys won’t wallow in prison”

Photos: Ariel Ohana

Rav Sholom Ber Sorotzkin, rosh yeshivah of the Ateres Shlomo network, had just arrived in the US when a bochur from his yeshivah was arrested. He caught the next flight back, organized a massive media-savvy protest, and isn’t afraid to say it like he sees it. A candid conversation at the prison doors.

When military police arrived at private homes in the middle of the night two weeks ago and arrested three yeshivah bochurim who had not appeared at the draft office, they surely didn’t imagine the national outcry that would follow.

One bochur was a student at the ITRI yeshivah; another, from the Neve Eretz yeshivah, was arrested while in the week of shivah for his father, despite frenzied protests from family members (after that story spread, the pressure from all factions was so great that the court released him the next day); the third, Ariel Shamai, was from the Ateres Shlomo yeshivah in Rishon L’Tzion.

Once again, this round of arrests picked up yeshivah students from Sephardic backgrounds whose families are not well-enough connected in the chareidi world to generate an outcry. But when Rav Sholom Ber Sorotzkin, head of the Ateres Shlomo yeshivah network that covers yeshivos, kollelim and chadarim all over Eretz Yisrael with over 6,500 students, heard that one of “his” talmidim was incarcerated in military prison, he promptly turned around and flew back to Eretz Yisrael after he’d just landed in the US for another one of his regular fundraising missions.

A few days later (and three days before the “Million-Man” demonstration at the entrance to Jerusalem), thousands of cheder children affiliated with the Ateret Shlomo network joined others in a demonstration and prayer vigil outside Military Prison 10 — wearing yellow caps and carrying yellow balloons — symbols associated with the hostage families’ campaign (all living hostages had already been released).

Rav Sorotzkin faced a fierce backlash from the media over that, but he wasn’t fazed. “The hostages are ours, too,” he announced. “We prayed for them, thousands of people took on commitments for their release, rabbanim slept on boards for two years. We certainly have no desire to cause pain to anyone, but understand this: To sever us from the Torah is like cutting off oxygen from a sick person. You fight for political privileges — we fight for the world of Torah.”