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Jewish Humor: Torah Students at War

I've seen in the news a lot lately that Israel is talking about requiring haredi (right wing religious Jews) to serve in the military just like everybody else. Their exemption from the military has been a sore point for secular Jews in Israel, who are the overwhelming majority of the population. The haredi, meanwhile ...

believe that they are providing the best possible service: by studying Torah and observing it, they keep the Creator on Israel's side, which, they say, is much more valuable than anything they could do on the battlefield. It all reminds me of an old joke about students from a Torah academy serving in World War I...

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The story goes that the Russian army in World War I needed some cannon fodder for the front lines, some disposable people who could waste the enemies' time and artillery by getting shot and killed. The Russians hated Jews, so what better to use as cannon fodder than the yeshiva bochers, students from strict Jewish religious schools! 

The Russians at least took the time to teach the yeshiva boys how to load their weapons and fire them. They might use up more of the enemy's time and artillery that way. 

Much to the Russians' surprise, they found that the yeshiva boys were all crack shots! Every one of them hit the target on the bullseye every time! So they moved the targets back farther just to see what the boys could do, and they were still hitting the target reliably! They moved the targets back even farther and the boys were hitting it better than their commander had ever seen! Russia's new secret weapon was a bunch of boys from the Torah Academy!

He took them out onto the battlefield where the enemy was approaching and commanded, "FIRE!", but not one of the boys fired a shot. "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!!! Why aren't you shooting like we taught you???"

One of the boys explained, "There's people out there! Somebody might get hurt!"

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