National Religious Party head MK Zevulun Orlev accused IDF Human Resources commander Major-General Elazar Stern of using soldiers enlisted in the Hesder Yeshivas as "hostages" Friday. Orlev expressed anger at Stern's renewed decision to keep the Hesder soldiers from serving in the Paratrooper and Golani Brigades.
The Hesder yeshiva soldiers serve in the military for a shortened term of duty, and spend the rest of their service studying Torah and carrying out socially-related assignments (like strengthening the beleaguered residents of Sderot, in the case of the hesder yeshiva there).
Mk Orlev noted: "Stern's decision was rejected by then-Defense Minister Amir Peretz and by the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee which convened an urgent session on the matter at my request six months ago."
At that session, Peretz announced that he supported continued integration of the Hesder yeshiva soldiers in brigades of Golani and the Paratroopers. He also made clear that Stern's decision did not have his backing and had not been approved. Since then, said Orlev, there has been no other decision, and Stern's plan was put on hold.
"Stern cannot use the Hesder students as hostages for advancing his own agenda," said Orlev.
IDF Spokesman
Increase service from 16 months to 24
In November of 2007, Stern said too much of the Hesder students' activity, like that of the Nahal Brigade's soldiers, was socially oriented, and that the IDF could no longer afford that in the present situation. "The IDF Chief of Staff has already asked the hesder yeshivas to increase the period of service from 16 months to 24," he told the audience. "Bearing in mind the IDF's needs and the security needs, we think this should be conside
"Stern's decision was rejected by then-Defense Minister Amir Peretz and by the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee"
red positively."
Stern's views on the hesder system are sharply contradicted by its proponents, who do not think it makes life easier for the students, but actually more challenging.
Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein of the Hesder Yeshiva in Har Etzion wrote in 1981 a groundbreaking article explaining the benefit of combining Torah studies with military service:
"While a student is tied down by hesder for almost five years, he only spends, unless he becomes an officer, about sixteen months in uniform. Most important, however, hesder provides a convenient framework for discharging two different - and to some extent conflicting - obligations. It enables him, morally and psychologically, to salve both his religious and his national conscience by sharing in the collective defense burden without cutting himself off from the matrix of Torah. Socially - and this of course has religious implications as well - hesder offers him a desirable context as, even while in the army, he will often be stationed with fellow hesder soldiers. And hesder enables him, pragmatically, to keep his future academic and vocational options open."