Relationships Between Religiously Observant and Other Troops in the IDF: Vision Versus Reality

11 Relationships Between Religiously Observant and Other Troops in the IDF: Vision Versus Reality Stuart A. Cohen From a sociological perspective, undoubtedly the most significant characteristic of the idF is its structure as an overwhelmingly conscript army. Salaried professionals in the israeli military are vastly outnumbered by men and women drafted for two to three years of service at age 18, who are also liable for mandatory terms of annual reserve duty until middle age. Manpower requirements undoubtedly provided the principal impetus behind israel’s original decision to institute conscription.1 From the first, however, societal desiderata also loomed large. david ben-Gurion, the man who did more than 279 Non Orthodox Relationships.indb 279 7/13/10 10:06 AM Stuart A. Cohen any other to create the idF and determine its structure, was acutely conscious of the role that the military could play as a national “melting pot” and was determined to see it do so. As he informed a group of newly commissioned officers in 1949: While the first mission of theid F…is the security of the State, that is not its only task. the Army must also serve as a pioneering educa- tional force for israeli youth, both native born and immigrants. the idF must educate a pioneering generation, healthy in body and spirit, brave and faithful, which will heal tribal and diaspora divisions and implement the historic missions of the State of israel through a pro- cess of self-fulfillment.2 in large part, ben-Gurion’s vision of a homogenized israeli society focused on the need to bridge the gaps between native sabras, who were predominantly ashkenazim, and the large numbers of immigrants who began arriving in 1948, most of whom were mizrachiyim. but he also hoped that interpersonal relations between religiously observant and non-observant troops might be improved by the experi- ence of common military service. Hence, he categorically dismissed all suggestions that the idF follow the segregationist precedent set by the Haganah high command, which in the years prior to statehood had allowed the organization’s dati combatants to serve in their own homogeneous fighting formations. A delegation comprised of the political leadership of the national-religious political party (Mizrachi), who came to see ben-Gurion in 1949 in order to advocate the estab- lishment of specifically “religious units” in the idF too, soon found itself shown the door. determined to preserve the integrative ethos implicit in universal conscription, ben-Gurion brought the discussion to a swift and abrupt halt with the dire prediction that the creation of “religious units” would merely “result in the creation of anti-religious units.” His parting shot was as emphatic as it was terse: “Our army will be a united army, without ‘trends.’”3 For many years, assessments of ben-Gurion’s attempts to employ military service as a tool of social engineering tended to be extremely favorable. this is true as much with respect to relations between religious and non-religious Jewish communities in israel as with Non Orthodox Relationships.indb 280 7/13/10 10:06 AM Religiously Observant and Other Troops in the IDF regard to divisions related to differences of class, ethnic and national affiliations, and gender. in all cases, it was widely believed, the idF functioned as a “nation binder.” Moreover, thanks to the institution of compulsory reserve duty, which ensures that personal interaction among troops is regularly refreshed, military service was thought to create a national climate of mutual understanding that spilled over into the civilian sphere too. With specific reference to relations between religious and non-religious segments of society, this case was most explicitly argued by Samuel Rolbant, an American military sociologist. Writing in the late 1960s, a time when virtually everything the idF touched seemed to turn into gold, Rolbant reported that conscription’s principal achievement has been not that it has enabled the devout recruits to observe the requirements of the torah, but that it has helped to break all barriers between men who lived their lives in vastly different cultural milieus. boys from religious families could mix freely with antireligious boys from secularist left-wing kibbutzim, learning to give and take, to disagree while respecting the other’s right to his own view, to refrain from excesses of behavior and find a deeper unity of purpose.4 that assessment was probably over-enthusiastic even when first written. Viewed from the distance of almost four decades, it certainly needs to be revised. After all, since 1967, relationships in israeli society at large between Jews who are not religiously observant and those who are (to one degree or another) have become far tenser than either ben-Gurion or Rolbant could possibly have envisaged. Most obviously is that so at the extremities of the spectrum, represented by the ultra-Orthodox communities (haredim), on the one hand, and by dyed-in-the wool secularists on the other. Although observers identify attempts by many haredim to integrate into certain areas of national life,5 by and large it remains true to say that their lifestyles remain entirely their own. Recent decades, moreover, have witnessed clashes between haredim and secularists over a wide spectrum of issues that both sides consider to be vital cultural markers: the flow of traffic Non Orthodox Relationships.indb 281 7/13/10 10:06 AM Stuart A. Cohen through haredi localities on the Sabbath; the conduct of post-mortems; the location of archeological digs; parades by gays in Jerusalem; and, especially the application of rabbinic family law. Most contentious of all, however, has been the massive extent to which haredi males of military-service age now exploit the permission legally granted to them to “defer” their conscription on the grounds that “the [study of the] torah is their profession.” Whereas just a few hundred were originally granted this privilege in 1948, the numbers have since grown exponentially: to 8,257 in 1977, to 16,000 in 1985, and to some 45,000 in 2008 (a figure equivalent to over 10 percent of the total available pool of potential idF recruits).6 true, “draft dodging” of one sort or another is alleged to be rampant among some sectors of secular, bourgeois israeli society too. Nevertheless, even in those circles, conscription still retains much of its symbolic value as the ultimate rite de passage to full citizenship. in the vast majority of haredi communities, by contrast, non-service in the idF is an accepted societal norm. So much is this so that the families of those young haredi men who do enlist, for example, in the Nachal Haredi battalion, are frequently branded as in some way responsible for the deviant behavior of their relative, and hence are ostracized.7 Whereas haredim are generally noticeable by their absence from the ranks of idF military personnel, national-religious troops have become much more visible. Once rare, the sight of a kippah serugah— the most obtrusive sign of male national-religious affiliation—on the head of an israeli soldier on front-line active duty has in recent years become commonplace. this is particularly so in those units, combat as well as non-combat, to which enlistment is elective and selection especially rigorous. Graduates of the national religious school system are now over-represented—in many cases by a ratio of 3:1 —in the ranks of infantry companies and their junior and middle-rank officers, a prominence more bleakly confirmed by their similarly disproportionate share of idF battlefield casualties.8 they are also to be found in unprecedented numbers in several other areas of the military organization: the fighter pilots’ course (some 10 percent of whose graduates now wear kippah serugah); the Navy (which in 2008 for the first time adapted the kitchens in some of its combat vessels Non Orthodox Relationships.indb 282 7/13/10 10:06 AM Religiously Observant and Other Troops in the IDF to accommodate the kashrut requirements of its religious personnel); and the idF’s elite support units, a varied category that includes the computer branch (whose current CO, Lt.-General Ami Shafran himself wears a kippah serugah), the intelligence branch, and Galei Tzahal, the idF radio station. Furthermore, where the men have led, women seem to be quick to follow. in the past, almost all female graduates of the national-religious school system followed mainstream rabbinic instruction and elected to perform a year or two of civic service rather than of military duty. Of late, however, trends have shown signs of fundamental change. in 2007, fully a third of female graduates of national-religious high schools elected to serve in the idF, in one capacity or another. this article does not seek to analyze the possible reasons for such phenomena, a subject that left-wing politicians and sociologists have debated at some length in recent years, in some case rather venomously so.9 instead, its purpose is to explore some of their possible implications. Specifically, it aims to examine the extent to which the substantial increase in the proportion of “national religious” soldiers serving in the idF, together with the increasing fragmentation of israel’s society and culture at large, has impacted upon the ability of the military framework to continue to perform a bridging function between those troops who do observe an Orthodox lifestyle and those who do not. Overall, we shall suggest, the record is mixed. in some areas, certainly, conscription has helped to moderate interpersonal tension between religious and secular troops. More commonly, however, the draft has merely transferred to a military setting the sort of demarcations that set apart religious from non-religious Jews in other walks of israeli life.

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