Q&A: Military Service for Women
Military Service for Women
Question
Hello Rabbi,
My name is Maayan, I’m religious and study in 10th grade at an ulpana. I’d like to ask something, please.
I want to enlist at the end of 12th grade for meaningful military service, to contribute my part in defending the state.
Of course, the head of the ulpana, the teachers, and my parents oppose it, and very strongly…. When I tried to understand why, several explanations came up, and here they are:
- Problems of modesty and problems of seclusion
- A man commanding a woman is something immodest
- Spiritual weakening and becoming non-religious
- “All the rabbis forbid it,” “the Chief Rabbinate forbids it”
- It’s not a woman’s role to be in the army; “the dignity of a princess is inward”
I’m asking both about combat service—Border Police, combat battalions for women, combat medic, drone operator (which is less combat-oriented), artillery, an Oketz fighter, and many more—and also about non-combat service (field observer, Military Intelligence, and more).
Reason 3 doesn’t answer the question in my view, because that’s exactly what we’re discussing: why is it forbidden? Reason 4 is simply chauvinism; you could say the same thing about studying physics or law at university. Reason 2 is exactly the reason the Haredi boys don’t enlist, so I didn’t understand how suddenly it is a good reason for girls… Correct me if I’m wrong up to this point…
So we’re left with the issue of immodesty. And here I want to ask both about combat and non-combat service: is it forbidden for a religious girl to be a Border Police fighter because it isn’t modest? Because of wearing pants, or because of serving near boys, or because of something else? And if I’m in a track where a man doesn’t touch me in any way,
and if I’m a field observer, or serving in the Kirya / intelligence, is that also forbidden?
I’d be glad to hear your opinion, Rabbi: according to Jewish law, is it permitted or forbidden for girls to serve in the IDF—or maybe even a commandment?
Thank you,
Maayan
Answer
Hello Maayan.
I’m glad about the question, because it’s clear from it that you’re looking for a serious answer and not satisfied with slogans.
In general, I don’t like slogans, and even less so conservative slogans. And indeed, the reasons you brought have that sort of smell to them, especially since somehow it comes out wrong from every angle. Usually, in serious issues that isn’t the case. There are arguments in this direction and that direction, and in the end a decision has to be made by weighing them.
I’ll address each of the reasons.
- In certain units there are problems of seclusion. I’m not familiar with the situation on the ground, and it would be worth checking with people who really know—and who aren’t biased, either way. But in other IDF units it depends on you and is not inherent to the service. Modesty isn’t relevant here. The uniforms are modest, and I don’t see a problem with them.
- There is no problem with a man commanding a woman according to the norms accepted among us today. Modesty is a matter of accepted norms, and therefore it changes from time to time. Today there is also the situation of a woman commanding a man, which in the past they wouldn’t even have imagined. Again, the question of authority relationships is of course in the background, but my impression is that the army is very strict about this matter—sometimes too strict.
- This is indeed a real phenomenon, but it is true of boys as well. So what do they propose—that no one enlist and we have no army? Moreover, if many religious people enlist, that can change the situation and prevent the weakening. To abandon the arena to secular people is to make peace with that state of affairs. Furthermore, spiritual weakening is not a justification for not defending ourselves. That is why the parallel Haredi arguments are also unfounded. Soldiers die in the army, so spiritual weakening is a price that must be paid in order to achieve security. Beyond that, in many cases the weakening is not a result of enlistment; it already existed beforehand, and the army only sharpens it and brings it out into practice, because this is the first time the young man or woman is no longer in a religious framework.
- These are nonsense. The Chief Rabbinate has no status whatsoever. It is a corrupt institution run by nonentities. To regard it as an institution whose directives are binding is a joke. By the way, the person heading the Chief Rabbinate also opposes drafting boys and threatened that they would leave the country if they were drafted. It would be worth asking your teachers at the ulpana whether they also adopt that position of his. As for the other rabbis, there are rabbis who forbid it and rabbis who permit it. Every person chooses a rabbi for himself and can consult him. Therefore, it is not relevant who forbids and who permits, or who is the majority.
- Here, in my opinion, the claim is more serious. Not because of roles but because of suitability. Therefore the examples of law and so on are not relevant. In general, women are much less suited to combat roles. Just look at how the new cohort of field observers refused to enlist in that role. Would anyone have accepted such a refusal from boys? There was a failure, and now the task is to fix it. What do they expect—that there should no longer be field observers? Today’s discourse sees such statements as primitive chauvinism, but that is just propaganda. Still, this argument can be debated. Clearly, there are women who are suitable. This is a huge and diverse public. In general, I do not accept claims that some group is not suited to a role. Each individual should be examined on his or her own merits and not according to a group stereotype. But there are other considerations: the disruption to military functioning in mixed service, the physical harm caused to women in service—which people don’t talk about—and the concern about falling captive. Just look at how female captives held by Hamas are treated and how their release is prioritized before that of the men, etc. For some reason everyone forgets there that women are supposedly just like men. The concern that a female combat soldier might fall captive is very grave and very problematic, and it is completely different from a male combat soldier. All the “lessons” various propagandists bring from the Swords of Iron war are demagoguery. They proved nothing there. Obviously there are women who can drive a tank and fire it. That isn’t the question. The question is whether their physical fitness is sufficient, and whether the concern about falling captive justifies integrating them. If a female soldier falls captive, they will send out a brigade on a suicide mission to prevent that from happening. That is completely different from a male soldier. Look at the discourse about the field observers who were kidnapped as opposed to the male soldiers. Again, for some reason everyone forgets here that female soldiers and male soldiers are supposedly the same thing.
The conclusion that emerges from all this is that these things need to be weighed more broadly. The question is not a halakhic one, and therefore each woman should decide for herself. In my opinion, combat service is not advisable. Other service, within the limits of avoiding seclusion and concerns about physical harm, is possible. But what is wrong with meaningful national service? It is no less important a form of service, even if it is not in uniform and is less heroic and less publicly esteemed. You can save people’s lives in national service, sometimes far more than in the army. There is also a lot of sloganeering regarding national service, just like regarding army enlistment. I suggest weighing the matter on its merits and not being impressed by slogans in either direction.
I understand that you still have time until the end of high school. In any case, good luck in your studies, and afterward in the decisions you make.
Discussion on Answer
Indeed, closeness can be problematic. But I don’t know the situation well enough to express a position on it. In mixed combat service there is also physical contact as well (carrying a wounded soldier, etc.). But that is similar to a medic/doctor who is preoccupied with his work.
I know a bit about the issue of field observers, because the daughter of a close friend is a field observer at Nahal Oz (luckily she was home for Sabbath on October 6).
There are 2 points the girls raised and didn’t receive an answer to—
The first is a familiar issue: male officers ignoring the “girls.”
The second point is the issue of their protection—field observers serve without combat training and without weapons. There were requests to arrange training and distribute weapons to them, and those requests were rejected. They were told that if the outpost was attacked, they were supposed to lock themselves in their rooms and wait for rescue (which worked so well on October 7), and that was when the rooms had wooden doors that could be kicked in…
My personal opinion is that the army belittles women’s service with a circular argument of the type: girls don’t really fight, so we won’t let them fight…
That argument is challenged somewhat by the brave fighting of women in combat roles (field observers and war-room operators don’t receive weapons, so expecting them to fight is absurd).
There were women tank fighters whom the army looked down on and shoved off to some remote corner, who arrived first to the Gaza envelope before all the armor battalions of the “heroic” corps; there were all-IDF training-course female commanders at Zikim who fought and defended the recruits.
There was similar contempt all over the world at the beginning of the twentieth century toward women’s education or the idea of a woman doctor.
The cycle was broken after many feminists (real ones!!) advanced as pioneers ahead of the camp, and today the idea of a woman doctor sounds jarring to no one.
I agree with every word. And still, everything I wrote stands.
Regarding physical harm to women in combat service—they forget to mention that men also suffer irreversible physical harm in combat service.
In my time it was very rare to meet an infantry soldier who didn’t suffer from knee problems, recurring sprains, or stress fractures, and somehow nobody thought that was a reason not to enlist in combat.
In one of the mutinies in Golani, every soldier who went home went to a civilian orthopedist (in my time that was allowed) and got a month of medical leave.
The battalion commander went crazy, but it was all legal and backed by X-rays / bone scans.
There simply wasn’t a soldier who wasn’t suffering from an injury that should have sent him home.
Not comparable at all. Among women there are severe and irreversible harms. Alternatively, in order to prevent them, they make the tasks easier for them.
I know that women can have damage, for example, to uterine function. In general there can be various harms to any person regardless of sex when it comes to combat service, but suppose equal combat tasks are given to women and in close combat, on average women will be harmed more and the tasks will be harder for them. But of course anyone who wants to and is suitable can contribute in many ways, so obviously from there to blocking the option of any kind of combat role to them is not right. But also don’t try to compare women and men in the context of injuries, because physically, on average, there are preexisting differences even before beginning any process of training, instruction,
therefore the treatment is different, and rightly so.
In my company a guy broke his pelvis in training and remained disabled for life—too bad they didn’t make the tasks easier.
Even stress fractures are irreversible, and in my company everyone had them—and again, it would have been worth making the tasks easier.
When I think about it soberly, going to infantry is a kind of madness—for men and women alike.
Without getting into the issue of Jewish law, I’d say that if a girl wants combat service, an infantry track is less recommended. On the other hand, armor or being a drone operator can create a much more significant effect than infantry, just without the aura. What is certain is that the army has exhausted its quality manpower and is drafting many soldiers whose mental abilities are not impressive. The female manpower has not been exhausted (because entire sectors are out of the game), and there are talented women there who can make a difference.
I expect a similar leap in quality if and when Haredim join—if we get the top two Haredi deciles, there will be a major jump in the quality of manpower in the IDF.
In section 1, what about modesty in terms of closeness? In combat service, clearly there is a great deal of closeness in such units that is completely different from other settings like studies and so on. Of course, if the unit is only women then it isn’t relevant.