Yeshiva students to Court: Give IDF status back to Har Bracha

Students from a right-wing yeshiva in the West Bank on Friday appealed to the High Court of Justice to overrule Defense Minister Ehud Barak's decision to oust their school from a joint program with the Israel Defense Forces.

Barak retracted Har Bracha Yeshiva's status as a hesder institution, which combines army service and torah studies, after headmaster Rabbi Eliezer Melamed urged soldiers to refuse orders to evacuate West Bank settlements.

In their appeal, the students wrote that Barak had no authority to make such a decision and was beginning a dangerous "snowball effect."

Barak's move puts a "crack in the sacred partnership between the IDF and the national religious community that has existed practically since the state was founded," wrote the students.

Barak had initially considered expelling the Elon Moreh Yeshiva from the hesder as well, since its head, Rabbi Elyakim Levanon, had also called on soldiers to disobey army orders.

But after Levanon joined the heads of all the other hesder yeshivas in signing a letter condemning disobedience, Barak decided not to act against Elon Moreh.