Overcoming gender

Integration of both women and religious men into the IDF’s most prestigious units need not lead to strife and confrontation.

By JPOST EDITORIAL
Woman Soldier 521 (photo credit: IDF)
Woman Soldier 521
(photo credit: IDF)
Religious soldiers are becoming an increasingly dominant force in the IDF. Although our military provides no official breakdown of the precise number of religious and nonreligious soldiers, various sources estimate that about a third of all graduates from officers training courses in combat units wear crocheted kippot, much higher than the 6 percent they make up in the IDF. In many elite combat units, Orthodox soldiers have taken over the role once played by secular Ashkenazi kibbutziks.
In general this is a highly positive trend. Religious soldiers have proven to be highly motivated, selfless defenders of a Jewish state forced time and again to resort to military means to protect its citizens. And despite claims that religious soldiers are torn between their loyalty to rabbis and their commitment to a secular military hierarchy, there have been few cases of insubordination, though these few cases have often been seized upon by left-wing media with little understanding of the diversities of religious Zionism to portray all crocheted kippa-wearing soldiers as extremists.
There is one part of society, however, that might be hurt by the rise of Orthodox soldiers in the IDF – women. The potential for a clash between religious men and women was evident earlier this month when nine cadets in an officers training course stood up and left an IDF ceremony to avoid listening to the singing of female soldiers.
The cadets, who ignored repeated calls by their commanders to return to the ceremony, claimed that Jewish law forbade them to hear a woman sing, even though several respected spiritual leaders argued there was no obligation to disrupt the ceremony and that soldiers had the option of quietly reciting Psalms or distracting themselves in some other way.
After consultation with the brigade commander, senior army officers and military rabbis, four of the nine who refused to apologize were expelled from the officers’ training course.
The cadets’ demonstrative and premeditated act based on a stringent view in Jewish law – not to mention prurience – coupled with the harsh response of the IDF brass underline the ongoing tension between the sexes. And these sorts of gender clashes are likely to take place more frequently. In parallel to the rise of religious men in the IDF, women too have been seeking out more dominant roles in our military forces, including in combat units once considered off limits to females.
FEMINISTS CALLING for a more egalitarian role for women in the IDF scored their first major victory in 1995 when Alice Miller successfully petitioned the High Court of Justice to open pilots’ training courses to women. In 2000 the Security Service Law was amended to ensure equal opportunity for women in the IDF. Gradually, combat positions were opened to women. And in 2003 women who volunteered for these positions were required to serve three years like men.
Manpower shortfalls in the IDF – in part due to the growing number of 18-year-olds who defined themselves as haredi and, therefore, exempt from military service – created an incentive for the integration of women into combat units. By 2005 positions in the IDF open to women rose to 88% from just 56% in the 1980s.
Like the rise in the number of religious soldiers, the increasing integration of women in diverse and challenging IDF positions is a positive development. Skills learned in the IDF are often readily transferable to the civilian labor market. Women who excel as officers or in other roles that demand responsibility, commitment and interpersonal skills often go on to serve in high-ranking managerial positions after their army stint is finished. And this helps do away with lingering gender discrimination in the business world.
Integration of both women and religious men into the IDF’s most prestigious units need not lead to strife and confrontation. In most cases both the religious sensibilities of devout soldiers and the aspirations of women for professional advancement can be accommodated, provided there is good will, mutual respect and the restraining of religious fanaticism.