Hyehudi.org

But the harshest decree was issued in 1827, when the tsar ordered that each Jewish community deliver up a quota of military recruits. Jews were to serve for twenty-five years in the military, beginning at age eighteen, but the draftable age as as low as twelve. Those under eighteen would serve in special units called Cantonist battalions until they reached eighteen, whereupon they would begin their regular quarter century of service. As if a term of army service of thirty years or more were not enough, strenuous efforts were made to convert the recruits to Russian Orthodoxy…

A double catastrophe fell on the heads of Russian Jewry: their sons would be taken away not only from their homes and families but in all likelihood also from their religion. Little wonder that all sorts of subterfuges were used in attempts to avoid military service. One can even understand the willingness of the wealthy, and of the communal officials whom they supported, to shield their own children from service by substituting others, as was allowed by law. The hapless substitutes were almost always the children of the poor and socially marginal. The decree fell upon them with especial cruelty, as they watched khapers (snatchers) employed by the community to tear their children, no less beloved though they were poor, from their arms. The oath of allegiance was taken by the recruits who were dressed in talis and tfilin… as they stood before the Holy Ark in the synagogue, and was concluded by a full range of shofar blasts. This only further embittered the recruits and their families, not only toward the tsarist regime but also toward the ‘establishment’ of the Jewish community.“

From “A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union” p. 4.

Rabbi Avi Grossman concurs on De Haan hagiography:

[R’ Sonnenfeld’s artscrollized* biography] does a superb job of rehabilitating the reputation of Jacob Israel de Haan, the secular, unrepentant, homosexual, pedophile pornographer, who, because of his anti-zionist activities, was assassinated by the Haganah, and thus became a Haredi martyr.

See the rest here…

Note: I suspect Rabbi Sonnenfeld and his collaborator were far closer to anarchists than “anti-zionists”, though this requires further research.

From Charedi wiki, Hamichlol:

Funny story: I once pointed out these sort of non-conformist facts about Rabbi Sonnenfeld to a haughtily conformist great-grandson of Rabbi Sonnenfeld, and he immediately proceeded to attempt to destroy my life. Ha, good times…

Download (PDF, 191KB)

Reprinted with permission.

הבהרה: אין למדין מן האגדות.