IDF lacks 'thousands of combat troops', army chief Zamir tells rabbis amid outrage over integration of female soldiers

Amid the ongoing controversy over the IDF’s plan to integrate female soldiers into the Armored Corps, Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir on Tuesday met with a group of national-religious rabbis to find a solution.

The meeting came after the leaders of 12 national-religious hesder yeshivas announced last week that they would no longer send students to join tank units over the issue of integration. Hesder yeshivas are a special type of religious school that combines the study of the Torah and Talmud with a shortened service in the IDF.

In the meeting with the yeshiva heads, along with several senior IDF officials, Lt. Gen. Zamir told the rabbis, “The IDF is still short of thousands of fighters and needs every fighter to fulfill its missions and consolidate the achievements of the campaign.” 

Zamir also spoke of the military’s appreciation for “the decisive contribution and great sacrifice of the yeshivah students over the years, and even more so during the war, as they stood together with other populations in the front lines of the fighters of the people's army.” 

Last week, Lt.-Gen. Zamir stressed that integration of female tank units did not mean that men and women would serve in the same tank, stating, “there is no intention to integrate men and women together in tank crews, in training or in mission phases.”  

Zamir told a meeting of senior military officials that the pilot program, set to begin in November of this year, will be based on “professional proficiency, in accordance with existing operational standards and without compromise.” 

The IDF further said, “The integration of women will be carried out within a dedicated framework, which will be at least at the company level.” 

In their letter of protest, the rabbis wrote that they “take a very serious view of the decision by the High Court of Justice to require the IDF to integrate female combat soldiers” into the Armored Corps, which has a high number of religious Zionist recruits. 

The national-religious yeshiva enlistment program, called hesder, is around five years long overall, combining several years of intensive Talmudic and Biblical study with 16 months of active military service. It is a flagship program of the ideology of Religious Zionism and its community that generally advocates the combination of a religiously observant lifestyle with life and work among a secular and Zionist Israeli society.

Following the publication of the letter of protest by the rabbis, a group of 257 female officers, both current and former, sent a letter to Chief of Staff Zamir, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and Defense Ministry Director General Amir Baram, warning of an "anti-feminist wave against female fighters and women in the IDF." 

In the letter, the female officers called on the command and political echelons to stop "the takeover of the IDF by foreign elements.” 

“We stand together as one front to protect the female fighting force in the IDF,” the officers wrote. “Recently, we have witnessed a dangerous reality which harms the chain of command. As female officers who have dedicated and still dedicate their lives to the security of the country, we see this as an immediate danger to the IDF.” 

Six female officers with the rank of brigadier general, seven with the rank of colonel, and 28 with the rank of lieutenant colonel were among the signatories to the letter. 

The officers argued that female fighters "are not a subject for discussion or a problem that must be stopped, but rather a fait accompli, operational fact, and a strategic asset.” 

“The apologizing for our presence is over,” the letter stated. 

Referring to the letter by rabbis against joint service, the officers said it was “a call for de facto refusal" and "a blatant attempt to dictate a civilian agenda to the IDF at the expense of operational needs.” 

They added that “the silence of the senior command in the face of this dangerous intervention in the deployment of forces constitutes a serious violation of the security of the state and the authority of the commanders in the field.” 

At the same time, the political conflict over the issue of ultra-Orthodox enlistment, which led to the calls for an early election, has again spilled out into the streets of Israel.

Haredi rabbis and leaders called for a widespread protest on Wednesday evening, aimed at paralyzing traffic in several Israeli cities, as the leaders continue to demand an exemption for ultra-Orthodox men from serving in the military.