MARK THE MOMENT...MAKE THE FEELING LAST FOREVER

Draft Dodgers
On The Hit Parade

,NECHEMIA MEYERS

/-Special to The Jewish News

S

hlomo Artzi has long been
one of Israel's most popular
singers. Now his son, Ben, is
joining . him on the hit parade.
But there is one major difference
between them. Shlomo first achieved
prominence in uniform, as a member
\--4 the Israeli Navy Entertainment
,-,
Troupe, while Ben has come into the
spotlight as a draft dodger, who makes
no apologies for the fact that he has
avoided military service.
If this were an isolated phenome-
non it probably wouldn't make much
difference, but it is not. In recent
years, a whole string of popular singers
have made it to the top, or near the
top, even though they managed to
escape the three years in khaki that
most Israeli young men experience.
Most famous of these draft dodgers
is Aviv Geffen who, despite having
popularized several "anti-patriotic"
songs, has been demonstratively
accepted by the establishment. This is
clear from the fact that he was a cen-
tral figure at the giant outdoor assem-
'Dly dedicated to the memory of assas-
sinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Moreover, Geffen isn't just anyone.
Not only is his father a former para-
trooper and a famous writer, but the
late Moshe Dayan was his cousin.
This means that Geffen was born into
the Israeli elite, an elite that has hith-
erto provided most of the country's
battlefield heroes.
`-' Does this development threaten
Israel's ability to defend itself? Will the
example set by the singers, who are,
after all, role models, affect the will-
ingness of other young Israelis to put
their lives on the line in defense of the
country? Will norms change so com-
pletely that draft dodgers won't try to
hide their failure to bear arms, but
\-- r ictually boast about how they beat the
system?
Leading music critics are of different
opinions in this respect. Yosi Harsons
of Ma'am and Amos Oron of Yediot
Aharonot are profoundly concerned
about the impact on Israeli youth of
Artzi, Geffen and others like them.
Michal Palty of Htlaretz and Sharon

Glick of Kol Hair, in contrast, think
that their behavior simply indicates
that Israel is becoming a normal soci-
ety, in which some of its members feel
that their personal needs come first.
Dr. Reuven Gal, former director of
army psychological services and now
head of a research body that studies
relations between military and civilian
institutions, doesn't think that draft
dodging has reached dangerous propor-
tions so far. He points out that exemp-
tions have always been granted not only
to Orthodox yeshiva students, but also
to a small number of secular young
men who the army thought were more
trouble than they were worth. And now
that mass immigration has significantly
increased the number of 18-year-olds
eligible for military service — while
manpower needs have not grown to the
same degree — exemptions are readily
granted to oddballs and troublemakers.

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But, Gal adds, "if this phenomenon
really gets out of hand, there will be
trouble because you can't have corn-
pulsory military service if it is only
compulsory for the,Treiers' [suckers]."
The press has generally treated the
musical draft-dodgers with kid gloves,
causing some readers to complain
both about them and their counter-
parts in yeshivot. 'Following a story on
Ben Artzi in Ma'ariv, Dov Brinkner of
Beersheba wrote: "I have no use for
those who avoid front-line service, be
it because of religious studies or
recording sessions. I hope the press
will stop heaping praise on such shirk-
ers, whatever their excuse for refusing
to bear arms."

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MARK THE MOMENT...MAKE THE FEELING LAS

4/10
1998

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